A Monarch's Corruption
by Tails Fanatic
Summary: A story semi based on the comics. What happens when the Kingdom of Acorn's monarch runs into sever trouble and then entire kingdom is on the verge of being disrupted by a new force in town?
1. The Day

A Monarch's Corruption

Chapter 1: The Day

The planet Mobius is such a wonderful planet. Life as far as the eyes can see. Trees, animals, water, rocks, and Mobians are all over this wonderful planet. It has been green at least for most of its life, but awhile back when Robotnik used to roam around the planet, it suffered greatly. Many of the trees were cut down, cities burned and many of the inhabitants killed or roboticized by the tyrant. The land was greatly scarred and polluted while he was in power. After years of war and fighting to try and take him out of power and to destroy Robotnik for good, it finally succeeds and Robotnik is finally killed and the world was free once more.

Once Robotnik was gone for good this time, the inhabitants of Mobius started to repair the great damage that was done to their lovely planet. They went out and planted new trees, dug new rivers to get around the polluted ones that would need to be cleaned up with time, and Mobian's start to reorganize themselves and start to come together to form a new great city, where the Kingdom of Acorn could reestablish itself once again to its once former right as ruler of a great deal of Mobius. The city of New Mobotropolis already did exist though, just they could finally expand their city beyond the limits of its walls and make the city grow now and grow it did.

New Mobotropolis was growing nicely, and the surrounding area was starting to look like its old self again, before all the events with Robotnik happened. Sally was getting ready to ascend to the throne soon, since her brother Elias was starting to get tired of ruling. He never wanted to rule in the first place and only ruled to help Mobius through its tough times. Now that those times had passed, he wanted to pass the kingdom on to someone who he knew could run the kingdom better, and that of course would be his sister Sally. Sally had trained since she was a little girl to one day ascent to the throne, where as Elias had not. Elias and Sally both agreed on this and were preparing to soon to prepare a ceremony where a new ruler could be crowned for the Kingdom of Acorn.

Everyone in the kingdom was anxious for this day, but no one was as anxious as Sally finally hearing she was going to get her chance to rule like she always dreamed she would one day. She spent all her time preparing for the ceremony, and also spending the majority of this time with Sonic, who was helping her out in her preparations. Sally and Sonic had had their ups and downs throughout the years, but it was appearing that those differences were slowly starting to fade on away. On the day of the ascension ceremony though, everything in the kingdom changed.

Trumpets sounded all around the city as the ceremony was about to begin shortly. Citizens of New Mobotropolis start to enter the palace threw the open doors of the castle. Guards were standing outside the doors accepting invitations to get in to see the ceremony since it was invitation only, to high ups in the city and friends of Sally and her family. The regular people of New Mobotropolis though weren't going to be left out of this. Sally had television cameras all inside the castle as well, so that the ceremony could be broadcast to her people. That way no one would be in the dark and not be able to watch their new queen ascend to the throne.

Elias sat on the throne as the guests all start to pour into the room and takes their seats, many of them he knew, though there were a few unfamiliar faces, but that was expected since he couldn't know everyone around here. He saw familiar like the Prower family, the hedgehog family, Bunnie and Antoine, Amy Rose, Rotor, they were all there. All of Sally's friends that could get there that day, and those that couldn't would be able to see through the tv monitors what happens. All of Sally's friends were all dressed up and looking pretty good for this event, since it was a special formal event for them all. Though Sonic seemed to be absent from his parent's seats, there an open space where he should be sitting. Though no one was worried, because they all knew where he was.

Sonic was in the hall nearby with Sally, who was wearing a very royal looking white dress, but Sally was pacing back and forth looking very nervous about what is about to happen. Sonic was standing next to her, wearing a pair of tux that do seem a tad baggy on him, but still fit him just right though, he walking with Sally trying to calm her on down. "Sal, you have been waiting for this day all your life and you wait until now to start getting cold feet?" asks Sonic seeing this he trying to think of anything to calm her down, since she was sweating like mad.

"I know Sonic, but this is finally the day it happens. The day I finally take the throne like I imagined myself doing all those many times in my mind, and I never imagined it would be this nerve racking." she says and just sits down in a nearby chair and looks exhausted from all the worrying she had obviously been doing.

Sonic walks over and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Sal, I know you better than anyone around here. I know you're nervous but you can do this. You remember back many years ago, we all even practice this ceremony when we were all just kids and you were so confident back then. I know you still have that same confidence in you today, just this time it's for real. If it helps any, just pretend that this is back when we were kids in Knothole and this is one of those practice ones we did while you were in training." says Sonic trying to think of anything to help Sally get over her nerves so that she could go out there and do this.

Sally could think back to the time he was telling her about. She could remember how back then she was so confident at those fake ceremonies that she was almost cocky in the way she would go up, accept her crown and then pretend she was their leader and want to boss the other kids around. She was no longer like that in that she just wanted to be the ruler so that she could boss everyone around, but the moment she got to thinking about those old times, it just make her grins and chuckle some. "Yes, I remember those ceremonies. I was such a cocky and bossy little thing wasn't I?" she asks Sonic smiling more now.

Sonic couldn't help but grin on back to her, "Cocky and bossy would be an understatement Sal, but I think it works." he says and chuckle some back to her, because he did agree with her, and can see his plan is slowly starting to work with her. He just wanted her to calm down and that looked to be what she was doing now.

Sally takes another look over at him when he says that. "I guess you're Right Sonic, I've grown a lot since back then when those were just pretend. I am about to finally do the real thing and will soon have even more responsibilities than ever before on my chest." she says as she sits there and looks right back at him, Sonic not turning away and looking right back into her eyes.

"You know you won't be alone Sal. You have Tails, Rotor, Bunnie, and all of us here to help you with your duties if things get to hard to handle. Just because you would be queen, doesn't mean your friends won't jump in and give you a hand as well. Plus, you've also got me here to help, and you know you can count on me. You can always count on Sonic the Hedgehog when you're in a pinch." he tells her and just softly smiles to her, this time, it not a cocky grin, it just the most subtle politest smile that he could muster for her.

Sally looks back up at Sonic, they remaining eye locked for at least a minute before something was finally said by Sally, "Thank you Sonic, what you just said is true. I guess my mind is all cloudy and fogged up from nerves that it just slipped my mind. I don't have to worry, I will have all of you guys here with me to help, but most of all, I will have you hopefully by my side one day." she says and leans on over towards him carefully and slowly. Sonic smiles and slowly eases on over towards Sally as well as both of their eyes close and soon both of their lips met each other and they slowly drifted away into a slow passionate kiss right there in the lobby. They were alone now anyway, so it didn't matter to either of them that they were doing this in the lobby. Their lips stayed pressed together like that as Sonic and Sally's arms both slowly slide around each other as to deepen the kiss further. Their lips moved back and forth passionately as they continue the kiss for quite a bit of time, they seeming to be really into this one.

When the kiss finally broke, neither Sonic nor Sally pushed away from their embrace. They just kept their arms wrapped around each other in a very deep and comforting hug that seemed to be not only giving Sonic comfort, it was taking all signs of stress away from Sally thinking about the ceremony. Sonic leans over closer to her while still in the hug and whispers to her. "You got it." he says to her leaving just the small grin on his face and making her look very happy and so relaxed now. Sonic seemed to have really helped her out a lot with just a little affection.

When the hug finally ended and Sonic and Sally just sat there holding hands, Sally looks over at Sonic and smiles. "I'm ready." she says and immediately stands on up and walks over towards the door ready to head on out as soon as she was announced. Sonic gets right on up and walks over and stands immediately behind her, he going to take his seat after she gets into the room a bit, since this was her ceremony. Just then there are more trumpets heard from inside the main hall and a voice coming now that was immediately recognized by the two of them to be Sally's brother.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the day of the throne ascension has come. You all know that I have really enjoyed being your King throughout these hard times of war, but now peace has finally brought itself across our great land after many years. It is what we have all wanted, but never could get while this world was in fear of the great tyrant that once roamed this planet. With him gone and our prosperity returning to our kingdom, it is time that a better ruler is put on the throne, one that knows how to run the kingdom properly, and was trained from a young age and always wanted to be on the throne. I only took the throne to fulfill the monarch and make it stable during a time when we needed our kingdom to be fully stable. Any hint of something going wrong with our royals could have been a sign for that great evil to attack us when we were most vulnerable. But we held ourselves together and we have made it through those hard times and finally took down that great evil!" he says very loudly at this point making most everyone in the audience start to clap for him, because they were all glad that it was over as well, and Elias was doing very good with his speech.

"Thank you all, but after all this time, the person who should rightfully be on the throne, will finally get the chance to be on the throne. I see no reason to postpone this any longer. It is time we commence with the throne ascension ceremony that you all have been waiting for. Everyone if you will please stand and give a warm welcome to your next Queen, and my sister, Princess Sally!" he says loudly and points towards the door as he sits there still on the throne. Everyone in their seats immediately stand up and turn to look at the giant doors that they had all entered in from and see them slowly creak open and reveal the lovely Princess Sally. She stood there in the middle of the doorway wearing a very long white dress that was covered in sparkly glittery sequins that made the light in the room make it more beautiful than it already looked. It was top of the line and professionally and personally made just to fit her and only her.

When everyone saw Sally standing there, they all immediately start to clap for her, as she started to slowly walk down the aisle towards the throne where her brother was waiting. She made sure to go slowly and carefully like she was always taught, so that everyone could get a good look at her, and the press could get plenty of good pictures of her. Sally didn't care how many cameras were on her at the moment. She was now totally focused on the throne and was heading right for it. Sonic in the mean time quietly slipped on into the room and over to his parents who both look over at him and smile gently towards him, he returning the smile. They both figured he probably had helped her in some way that they didn't know, but they both knew it was none of their business to ask him.

Sally makes her way on up towards the throne, and Elias stands on up to his feet and walks straight over to her. Everyone slowly sits on back down as soon as Elias and Sally are face to face with each other and the entire room goes silent for what is to come next. Elias looks down at Sally and smiles. "Princess Sally, you have proven yourself worthy of this crown and deserving of the title Queen. You have trained your whole life for this moment and have earned it. I know you have waited for this moment for a long time, so I'm not going to prolong it with some long speech, unless you all want one." he says grinning and looks to the audience who all start to laugh at that and all of them shake their heads happily at that. "Anyway, now that that little joke is over, let's get on with the ceremony." says Elias and takes his crown off his head. Everyone in the room remains completely silent and watch this part closely, this the part they all came to see.

Sally stands perfectly still as her brother holds the crown out towards her. "With this crown, you will be given many responsibilities and great power. It is your job to up hold the law of the land and not to let the power go to your head. You have waited and been trained for this honor, and you have proven yourself worthy of receiving the crown. Please just do your best and you will be a wonderful new Queen." he says and reaches out and slowly starts to lower the crown onto her head. Once he places it on her head he takes a step back from her. "Everyone, I would like to present to you all, your new queen of the Kingdom of Acorn, QUEEN Sally Acorn!" he says and the moment he does the entire audience starts to clap and all stand up to applaud her and congratulate her on her finally being able to get to be the Queen like she always wanted to be.

Sally smiles and turns to the crowd that was applauding her and raises her hand and starts to wave at everyone. Most of her friends all start to wave back to her, Sonic though couldn't help but give her a thumps up in approval at she finally having gone through it. Sally smiles right over at Sonic and backs on up and sits down onto the throne where her brother once sat as everyone in the room continues to clap still pretty wild and loudly for her. Sally raises her hands to everyone with a smile on her face still and tries to get everyone to calm on down so that she could say something now to them all. It took quite a bit for her to get everyone to settle on back down and sit back into their seats. "Thank you all, I would just like to thank you all for the support you have all given me over the years. I know I will make you all proud to be your new Queen. I will keep the order and make sure this land has long and everlasting peace for our children and their children to enjoy. I will do everything in my power to keep us in these good times, you all can trust me." she tells them all, which immediately makes them all start to clap for her once again.

Sally smiles very happy now looking out at her people who all seem to be very happy that she was now their Queen. She raises her hands on up to everyone once again to get them to be silent once again so she could continue to speak. Once she did get them all too finally be quiet again she smiles. "Thank you everyone, I'm glad you all are so happy that I am your new Queen, and like my brother said, I will do anything ensure the safety of all of you." she says as then there were a couple of giant bangs and pounds on the giant doors that she had just come in from a moment ago, making every single person the hall turn and look at the doors to see what that was. "What in the world is that?" asked Sally and pointed for some guards to go see what in the world all that racket was since whatever it was looked like it might destroy the door if it hit It again. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened as the doors fly off their hinges and fall forward onto the floor with a very loud thud.

The people in the room all scream at that and the majority of them hit the floor, but a few, mainly Sonic and friends all stand up wondering what that was. Once everyone had regained their composer, a bunch of dark hooded furs with blasters all start to enter the room yelling at everyone. "FREEZE! Move and we will shoot!" yells one as more and more of them pour into the room and fire a few warning shots into the air to show that they were serious, this making most of the guests in the room scream and hit the floor right away not wanting to get shot. Sonic and friends all gather together and stand there looking quite mad, but several of these hooded men all keep their guns pointed right at them, so that if they tried to make a move, they would most likely be shot, at least one of them would anyway, so no one made a move.

Sonic and crew didn't need a second thought at who this was. "THE DARK LEGION!" They all say in unison. The Dark Legion soldiers all continue to pour into the room, they putting blaster up towards most of the people in the room, who were all surrendering, and many of them just keeping their guns pointed right at Sonic and his friends who all didn't seem to be backing down or attack though at the moment for fear of someone else getting hurt from all this. "What are you echidna's all doing here?!" asks Sonic sounding very mad that they had just burst in and ruined the ceremony that was so special to Sally. Sally in the mean time was still sitting on the throne looking quite nervous with quite a few guns trained on her as well, they looking like they would fire if she were to move and she wasn't about to do that.

The hooded men keep their guns pointed at the people until everyone was being held up in the entire room. That's when a red echidna wearing long high heels walked into the room. She had long red bangs with bandages around them slightly and her hair was a light shade of both red and pink at the same time. Also one of her bangs was pure metal instead of regular fur or hair like the others usually had. She immediately walks into the room and just grins seeing who all was in here with her. "Well, look at all who is here. It looks like just about everyone we wanted to be here, is here." she says right away once she had finished scanning the room looking at everyone who was at gun point.

"Lien-Da, what are you doing here!" asked Sonic immediately recognizing her after their last few encounters together in the past. Lien-Da just gives Sonic a small grin and starts to slowly walk on over towards him and his group. They all put up their guard more as she approached them, they not sure what she might do at any moment to any of them.

Lien-Da slowly makes her way over until she wasn't but two feet away from Sonic and just stops there in front of him and grins very sinisterly. "Oh you will find out shortly hedgehog, but I am not the one you should really be worrying about at all. My men and I are not the ones running the show here, but we are the ones that have you all stopped in your tracks at the moment." she says grinning at him even more at saying that. This making Sonic take a step towards her, but all the soldiers around them raise their guns more and holds them tighter towards Sonic now. "DON'T MOVE!" one of them yelled at him, this making him freeze in place and slowly take a step back.

Lien-Da just couldn't help but chuckle more at this. "Well well, smart move on your part. I wouldn't want to risk what might happen to anyone in this room if you tried anything funny blue boy," she tells him once again and turns taking a few steps back away from him. She doesn't seem too concerned with Sonic at all at the moment.

"Lien-Da, I demand to know what you and your men are doing here and why have you taken us all hostage like this!?" demands Sally sitting there on the throne not daring to make a move from her throne. Lien-Da turns and walks back over towards the door and stops right at it, where a line of Dark Legion soldiers were all standing guarding the door to make sure that no one got out of the room.

"You want to know why we are here, I will show you who convinced us to come here and do this. Soldiers, move away from the door now." commands Lien-Da and the soldiers all don't hesitate one bit from her orders and step to the side. There in the doorway, stood a black and red hedgehog with solid red eyes and his spikes sticking up behind him, not straight back like Sonic's quills do.

The entire room gasped at who they saw standing there in the doorway looking back at them all. "SHADOW!" Sonic erupted and really looked ready to charge at Shadow, but the moment he made a foot movement there was a click as some of the nearby guards prepared their weapons again ready to fire if needed. If everyone in the room wasn't in danger as well, Sonic could just run all over these guys, but that one fact was holding him back. He would never put everyone else in danger just to save himself.

Shadow just calmly walks into the room but instead of heading towards Sally, Shadow heads right over towards Sonic instead. Shadow and Sonic have a long stare off, which was not unusual. Shadow was very close to Sonic, but Sonic still did nothing to attack or move at all. Once Shadow was close enough to Sonic, Shadow simply snaps his fingers and all the guards that were guarding Sonic and his friends back up and allow Shadow to close in on them, but they never letting their guard back down as Shadow walked right up to Sonic's face not intimidated one bit by how angry Sonic looked at him. Neither Sonic nor Shadow moved one little bit and just stared at each other in the most focused stare you have ever seen. Neither eye blinking or moving away from the other in wonder of what move either hedgehog was about to make, since neither of them were ever predictable.

Shadow just then moves to his right and slugs one of the Dark legion soldiers right in the face and grabs his blaster from him the moment that the echidna starts to fall from being knocked totally out cold from the punch directly in his face. Shadow swings around with the blast and aims it up towards Sally on her throne. Sonic sees that panics and darts at Shadow with all the speed he had, but that is what Shadow had wanted all along because the very millisecond that Sonic made a move, all Shadow had to do was raise up his knee, and it digs its way right into Sonic's gut, knocking the wind right out of him as he collided with it. This move nearly knocks Shadow off his feet so it took him a moment to regain his balance. Shadow of course regained his composure first and slams the butt of the gun he swiped right onto Sonic back and knocks him down to the floor hard, and then couldn't help but rear back and thrust a kick hard into Sonic's gut as hard as he could.

Sonic doubled over in pain on the floor in a ball coughing trying to regain his breath from both of those kicks. Tails tries to run over towards Sonic to help him, but a Dark Legion soldier raises his weapon right up into Tails' face making him stop on a dime and not make another move. "Good choice." says Shadow not even looking at Tails as he said it, Shadow's concentration was on the floor on Sonic. Sonic rolled onto his back to try and catch his breath and looks up at Shadow looking angry, but Shadow takes a step forward and puts his foot to Sonic's throat and looks like he could stomp down on it any minute and could possibly kill Sonic right here and now if the wrong thing was done now. The entire room looks in Shock seeing Shadow doing this to Sonic, who has his hands up on Shadow's feet trying to pull them off, but they weren't going anywhere, and Sonic was already having trouble breathing from the foot there on his neck.

Shadow keeps his foot there and looks to Sally. "You, come here now, or I will crush his wind pipe and kill him right here." commands Shadow keeping his foot firmly against Sonic's neck, he looking like he would hold good on his threat if anything was tried now. Sally wasn't going to risk anything happening to Sonic and stands right up and slowly makes her way down off the throne and right over to Shadow, Dark Legion guards keeping guns trained on her for in case she made a break for it or tried to attack Shadow. Sally had really no other options though at the moment but to comply or risk her friend's lives. Once Sally was all the way over there he reaches over to Sally and snatches the crown off of her head and shoves her to the floor pretty hard. The guards move in and grab her hauling her off to a nearby seat and throw her into it and keep their guns trained on her so that she doesn't make another move.

Shadow with the crown in hand now immediately puts it up onto his head until it was snuggly attached to his head and grins. "Alright everyone, I am your new King. Your old monarch is no longer going to be around, and instead I will be your ruler for all eternity. Don't even think of resisting either, because I have other Dark Legion soldiers already invading all over town and keeping the rest of the citizens in line. I won't hurt the majority of you as long as you submit to my rule, but if you resist, I can't guarantee your safety at all." says Shadow and reaches down and smacks Sonic upside the head with the butt of his gun, knocking him out cold with that hit.

Shadow removes the foot from Sonic's neck and heads over and sits on the kingdom's throne himself now and grins evilly at all of the people in the room. "Now, guards take Sonic and the purple Walrus Rotor to the dungeon and lock them up. Be sure you keep Sonic in hand locks chained to the wall so that he can't get any traction in his feet." says Shadow as quite a few guards grab up Sonic's unconscious body and start to tote him out of the room, and a few more taking Rotor out of the room at gun point towards the nearby stairs that would lead to the lower levels of the castle where their dungeons were at.

Shadow then turns and looks back at everyone else that was being held at gunpoint inside the castle. "As for the rest of you, no harm will come to any of you, but you will now have to submit to my rule. You can go on living your pitiful lives, but just know that I am watching you all, and if you step out of line, there will be a price to pay. Now, guards, escort the rest of these people out of MY castle, but bring miss Sally Acorn to me, she will not be leaving." says Shadow as he leans back grinning on the throne as he makes himself comfortable in the seat.

Everyone in the room is looking very mad and angry at Shadow at the moment, but with such an army at Shadow's disposal, there is nothing that any of them could do. Tails, Amy, Bunnie and the rest couldn't do anything either or risk being shot. Whatever was going to be done to stop Shadow was going to have to be done another time, since if they did anything now, there would be no way at all for anyone to try and stop Shadow. At the moment, Shadow had total control of the palace and the city as well, and nothing could be done about it at the moment.

The Dark Legion guards quietly escort all of the visitors out of the castle and once they are out the giant doors of the front, they are slammed shut and a few more guards stand watch over the entrance to the castle and any of the other small entrances around the outside of the castle. No one was getting in right now at all. The people outside are let go and released from gun point as soon as they were a bit away from the castle, the guards that had been holding them up head on back to the castle, though the streets were lined with many more guards everywhere, the city looking to be in panic and in chaos from what was going on, though everyone knew what was going on right away.

Inside the castle, Shadow raises the gun he took and aims it over at the tv cameras in the room, that now had no camera men in front of them and shoots his gun four time hitting each camera right in the lenses without missing or wasting one shot. Shadow then throws the gun to the floor not wanting or needing it anymore and looks to Sally. There were only five guards left in this room now, the rest were now patrolling the halls and standing guards at certain places inside it. "Now, it's just you and me. This kingdom is mine, but I know I am going to still need you around if I hope to keep the citizens loyal to me. You are going to stay in partial power, but I am your leader now. You are loyal to me and all decrees you make are going to be my decrees, you make no choice or go anywhere without me or do anything unless I ok it, you got that Acorn!" says Shadow scowling towards her showing how serious he was to her.

Sally sighs defeated now and doesn't know what else to do. She couldn't really do anything at the moment and she has been separated from her friends. Sonic has been hurt and locked in the dungeon along with Rotor. She feels like a failure to the kingdom now, because the moment she has become the Queen of the kingdom, it was being taken over by an outside force. It was like this was planned to take place while she was the one in power and on the day of her taking the throne as well, which was even worse. There was nothing Sally could do now and just gives a nod to Shadow. "Good girl, you have made a wise choice that will guarantee your continued existence. Now, go to your room, you are no longer needed. Your friends and family will be outside the castle walls and won't be hurt as long as they do anything to get in my way of taking this kingdom over and then the planet." says Shadow now starting to laugh loudly and laying back on the throne looking up at the ceiling as he laughs really hard and strong. Sally turns and quietly leaves the room under watch of the guards and heads on back to her room where she shuts her door and immediately jumps onto her bed and begins to cry into her pillows hard at what is going on now. The Kingdom of Acorn was now under the rule of the newly self crowned King Shadow, and there were signs that this wasn't going to be a good thing for the kingdom or its people for quite awhile to come.

This though, was twenty five years ago……


	2. The Start of Something New

A Monarch's Corruption

Chapter 2: The Start of Something New

"It has been twenty five years since the events of that dreadful day took place. The world changed greatly since King Shadow took over the Kingdom of Acorn. Laws have changed, and cities have changed. At least where I live now, his influence is only minimal and not as severe as it is back on the mainland ,where his palace is located, the old Palace of Acorn." thought a fox standing out on a small terrace at his house in the middle of a city in the land of Downunda. The yellowish colored fox stood on his terrace looking out at the small city that he now lives in now. He can see people walking the streets going about their normal daily routines. There the occasional Dark Legion soldier walking down the street as well, but most people seem to be used to them now and not really fear them anymore like that used to before. They were now more or less like King's police force all around the world.

That's another thing now a days, King Shadow didn't stop at just taking over the Kingdom of Acorn. King Shadow wasn't happy or at least tolerable until his influenced spread over the entire planet Mobius, and in twenty five years of ruling as the King, Shadow's influence has spread over the entire planet, in at least some form or another. Shadow doesn't care as much about this region as others, and the Dark Legion around here are also much more tolerable since this was the original Echidna home land anyway.

The fox was getting into his thinking when there was a call from behind him inside the house. "Tails? Are you out there on the terrace thinking again? You should come on back inside or finally tell me what has been on your mind lately?" asked yellow looking female mongoose. She had long purple hair, with a black top, and a long purple skirt. She was also wearing a pair and green boots and was smiling over at Tails. She was slightly worried about Tails with how much he has been going out there, but rarely showed it.

"Oh Mina, your home, I didn't hear you come in." he says and turns and walks back into the house and shuts the door behind him. He immediately makes his way over to her and gives her a hug and a small kiss on the lips. Mina smiles gladly returning the kiss when Tails offers it, she not going to deny him a kiss from his wife.

"Dear, you have been standing out on that terrace a lot lately. If you won't tell me what is going on, then I can't help you, or you could at least tell me to get whatever is on your mind off your chest. You know you can tell me anything?" asks Mina letting go from his hug and walks over to the couch and pats it motioning for Tails to sit down onto it right after she sits on down onto the couch already. Tails can't resist a request like that and finally breaks down and goes to sit down next to her. She was right, if he was never going to get this off his chest, it was going to keep bottling up inside of him and picking at him every day until he says or does something about it.

"Now, are you going to be a good fox and tell your wife what is going on here? I want to help you make sense of whatever it is that is bothering you? You have been out there so often, I'm surprised you haven't been wanting your meals out there as well." she says to him, though says it in a small kidding kind of way, but Tails looks back at Mina with a bit more of a serious look on his face than she had. "Dear, it's just ummm, I just can't stand the way things are any more. I thought I could live with the way things are today, but I just can't anymore." says Tails as he shakes his head looking down at the floor. Tails was now looking actually a little depressed about what he has just said and this was greatly concerning Mina seeing him like this.

"Is it something I did Tails? Did someone else do something to you?" she asks very concerned now with whatever is going on since it sounded so serious to him. Mina seriously hoped it wasn't something she did, since if it was, that would be even scarier for her and much more to worry about. Mina just hoped that wasn't the case.

"No no dear, you have done nothing, this isn't about you. You are a wonderful girl, and I am pleased that I have ended up with you. It's just the situation in this world that is finally getting to me, that I can't take it anymore. I thought I could live with it, but I can't anymore." says Tails looking up to Mina and gives her another reassuring smile and nod that this is not about her but about something else. Tails then reaches over and gives Mina a small hug just to me sure Mina knows it is ok.

Once the hug was done and they were looking at each other Mina couldn't help but ask, "Tails is this about the King again? You know that if you were to try anything then you would most likely be killed or thrown in jail for the rest of your life. You need to let it go and just live your life in peace. It's why we moved down here to Downunda and had our family here." she tells him, since he has mentioned something similar to this in the past. However, Tails had never seemed as serious about this before today. It all just sounded like speculation, which in these times could still be considered a jailable offence.

"Mina, I have had a wonderful life here with you for all these years. We have grown to love each other, gotten married and had two wonderful kids, but I still think there is something we can do to fix all of this and get a better life for us and our kids." says Tails to her sounding so serious about this, that it kind of makes her wonder what he is planning or thinking now. There was no telling what Tails might do when he gets super serious like this. Tails was known to jump into situations he shouldn't be in sometimes, but he usually thought them over before he did so.

"Dear, what has made all this come to your mind? We have a perfectly happy life here, and you have never seemed so serious about this before." questioned Mina. Mina was starting to get worried that Tails might be thinking of something that would get him hurt, and Mina wasn't likely to let Tails just run off and do that without a good explanation as to why he would do it.

"I know I haven't, but for one, I miss my friends, my old home, everything I used to love and grew up with. All of that was taken away when Shadow took the throne, and I don't think its right. I just know there is something I could do if I could head back to the west and return to city where all of this started." he tells her still looking serious but also kind of concerned, because he knew the people that lived back on the mainland where he grew up were not as well off as they were down here. Tails and Mina had it good here, but that is because Shadow never cared for this continent at all. It was just too far from his throne for him to care too much about it. Shadow didn't ignore the country, but he didn't do as much as he did to the places closer to him.

"Tails, if you were to return there, you could be thrown in jail or killed. I can't allow you to go back there and have you risk that. If I lose you, I don't know what I will do." says Mina now leaning over and hugging onto Tails tightly. Mina didn't want Tails to do something that might make her lose him like that, but the way he was sounding, that's what he seems to be planning he wants to do. Mina just hoped she was wrong about what she was thinking.

"Mina, listen, I know we have had this talk before, but I can't handle it anymore. If I don't at least try and do something to save this world and find my friends then I don't know what I will do. I haven't seen my family or any of my friends in at least five years. The last time I went to go visit my parents, I just barely was able to see them, since there were so many guards around making sure of what everyone was doing and such. Especially me, when I showed up there in my plane. I haven't seen Sonic in years either. I did hear rumors at one point that he had escaped prison a couple of years back, but then there is the other half of those rumors that say he had been executed. I need to go back and fix things. I need to learn the truth of what is going on in our world and if there is even the slightest possibility of being able to fix anything. I need to at least give it an attempt. I love you a lot and I always will, but if there is a way and I don't take it, then I will be letting not only myself down, but the people of this entire planet who want their normal lives back. We just got lucky that the Dark Legion is pretty lenient and a few are even kind of reasonable here in Downunda, but other places they are so strict that it's not funny. Wouldn't you rather go live and raise our family where you grew up? The city where we spent our earlier years before we fell in love and got married? Well as long as that Tyrant is still in power and oppressing the people of this planet that is not possible. I need try and fix this, even if I just put the smallest spark of change into people's minds, I will feel better about things. However, if I don't go and give it a try, I will never know if I could or not. Do you understand dear?" asks Tails as he finally takes a deep breath and just looks back into Mina's eyes. Tails now just hoping he got through to his wife with that little speech he just gave to her.

Mina was quiet now as she looked right back at Tails and right through his eyes and into his soul. She could tell that this time, these feelings weren't going to pass, and instead of just pushing them off this time, it would probably be best if she didn't fight them this time. She knew she might lose him for this, but she couldn't just deny him this time. "Alright Tails, You have my blessing. I want you to return back to our native lands and find out what you can do to help us all. Even if you don't do it directly I'm sure there is something you can do to help. I'm all for it this time dear, go, the kids and I will stay here where it's safe. No need to put your entire family in danger by going back there." she says and simply smiles back to Tails. This does make Tails smile a lot more and lean over immediately to embrace Mina lovingly in his arms and kiss her on the cheek and keep her wrapped up in his arms.

"Thank you dear, that is all that I ask for from you. I know that this world isn't right and there has just got to be a way to fix it all. However, I will promise you one thing. I will try my best to come back alive for you." he tells her and gives her another kiss but this one straight dead on the lips and not no small one either. This was a deadly passionate kiss that looked like it could last forever as their lips remain pressed together and wiggles around as they continue to kiss each other.

Tails finally pulls his kiss away from Mina and just smiles back at her as Mina does the same back to him. "Why don't you at least postpone this until tomorrow at least? That way we can get you some gear and get all packed up before you leave. If you're going to be away for such a long time, then you should at least be prepared." she tells him.

Tails really couldn't disagree with that and simply nods to Mina. "Yes, I should get prepared for this journey. You always have the best ideas, even ones that slip my mind from time to time." he tells her just keeping that same smile on his face. Tails was rather impressed with that idea, since he was thinking of just rushing out at this moment. Waiting till the next day sounded much better idea now.

"Don't worry, I will have your utility belt and side satchel all packed with essentials by tomorrow when you go." says Mina knowing just the things he would need if he was going to be in a situation like this. Tails has had to do some work around here before, so she already knows some of the things he would possibly need on this trip he is going on.

"Good, I know you're a big help." he says pulling Mina close to him and wraps an arm around her to hold her there close to him. Mina gladly lets Tails pull her over to him and snuggles back up to him, just wanting some more time with him while they can for now. Mina had no idea what might happen during this trip, so she wanted to enjoy what time she had left with Tails before he left.

The rest of the night went rather smooth. It was like any other day after that conversation was finished. The kids made it home not long after the talk, they getting home from their kindergarten, friends houses just in time for dinner. The boy, who looked very similar to how Tails looked when he was younger, only his fur just a tad different style, while the girl looked very similar to her mother when she was young as well. The kids apparently adored their parents and wanted to be just like them, if they were trying to look so close to the way their parents used to look.

Dinner passed by at a normal pace, but that is also when Mina and Tails told the kids what he was going to be doing tomorrow. They did look upset that he was leaving, but they were pretty mature kids and didn't stand in their father's way and respected his wishes. The kids just didn't want to lose their father, since they did love him very much. It didn't take long before dinner was over and Tails and Mina had put the kids to bed so that they wouldn't oversleep and miss him leaving in the morning. Tails went to bed right afterwards, but Mina stayed up a bit longer as she was packing some essentials for Tails that she thought he might need while he is out there doing whatever he is going to be doing. Once she was done, she went and got in bed with Tails, and they went to sleep for the rest of the night so that they would be well rested for when he left.

The next morning, Mina got up early and was in the kitchen making sure she made Tails a nice breakfast before he left. Tails walks in the next morning and immediately sits at the kitchen table to get ready for breakfast, they not waking the kids yet, since it was still too early for them to get up anyway. "So, what's for breakfast this morning?" he asks her and sits there looking ready for his breakfast.

"Just some eggs dear, I wanted you to eat at least sort of light, before you leave, since I know you will be flying for awhile. I figured that flying long distances on a full stomach might not be a good idea." she says now walking over to the table and sitting a plate there in front of Tails.

Tails immediately smiles hearing that, thinking that was a good call as well. He didn't need to be making several pit stops during his journey back to the mainland. "Good call, I wouldn't want that happening." he says to her and starts to slowly start to eat his eggs in front of him.

Once Tails started to eat, Mina left the room for a moment before comings back and sitting a small satchel and a pretty big belt that had many compartments all around it next to Tails. "I did as I said I would as well. I packed up and put some essentials in here for you. In your satchel I put some spare canned food and pouched food for you, that way in case you can't get any food, any other way then you have some food on you to sustain you for awhile. There is a small pocket Knife in this compartment of your utility belt that has a knife, a can opener, a bottle opener, and a small pair of scissors on it as well. Your satchel also has some rope in it, it's not very long, but you never know what you might need it for. There is a small blaster hidden in one of your pouches in your belt, as well as I happened to find two flash grenades in your shop and placed them in there as well. You never know, so I stuck them in there as well. There is a water canine over here, a small med kit in this pouch, some mini binoculars, and matches. There is some paper and some pens in your satchel for whatever you might want them for, some batteries for whatever, though I think that will be used for your blaster if you actually do use it, since those will give it more shots. There are also a few coins and such in your satchel as well. I made sure you had just about anything I could think of that is small and easy to carry with you. Just be sure if you need something from the satchel and you don't want the satchel, you use the one of the belt attachments and attach it to your belt for later use." says Mina and smiles as she sits these things on the table to show him. Tails just smiles as he sat there and ate breakfast during this whole explanation that seemed to last for quite a bit. Mina apparently had packed him pretty full and fast to have all of this ready for him to take on the trip.

Tails sat his fork on down, he already having finished the eggs, since he was eating while she was talking and looked very impressed with her now. "Wow, apparently you really thought this through and packed me many essentials for survival. I didn't know if I would need all of this, but you certainly seem to think I do. I will definitely use all this stuff, I just hope it's not all too heavy for me to carry, but that's what leaving the satchel behind is for if it is." he says and smiles looking over all the gear that she has packed up for him in front of him here on the table.

"Well, I would rather you be a tad over packed than under packed and then later realized you could have used something you didn't have later on you know." she tells him, which did make perfect sense to him. What if Tails did need something that was in this pack of equipment and he neglected to bring it with him? That would spell bad news if he was in a sticky situation.

"Alright, I shall take all of this with me when I head to the airport and take off in my plane." he says nodding and just smiles once again. He was still very impressed with Mina packing all this for him on such short notice. It showed Tails just how much she loves him, if she is willing to do all this just for him.

Tails got on up now and walks over to sit his plate in the sink for Mina and then walks back on over to her. "I guess I will go tell the kids that I'm going, get these things here on me, and I'm out dear. I know that this is all happening fast, but I know it just has to be done. If no one does anything, this world will continue to suffer under his rule." says Tails and looks her right in the eyes hoping she agrees with him now.

Mina couldn't help but just nod and agree with him. "After having a night to think on what you said last night, I have to agree with you. If there is anything we can do to fix this world and make it right again, then it has to be done. Who knows, maybe it was your destiny to make something happen for us all?" says Mina still with a smile on her face, showing she understand fully now the things he has told her. Tails is glad to hear that and just gives her yet another hug to show her his appreciation for what she is doing all for him.

Tails then turns and walks over towards his kid's room. Tails walks inside and sees his kids lying in their two beds still asleep. Tails turns their light on in the room then walks over to their beds and knelt down and gives both of them a light shake since their beds were right close by to each other. It didn't take much to be able to wake them both up at the same time, but that's how he often woke them up anyway. "Kids, can you wake up for a moment please?" asked Tails and gently shook them until they both opened their eyes and leaned on up to see what their dad wanted, but they already knew what it was from what they were told about the day before. "Alright, I know you both know what I am about to tell you, and I'm sorry that dad has to go away for awhile. However, as long as you both keep me within your heart and pray that I am going to be alright, dad will be alright. Don't worry, I'll set it up as well that you two are well looked after, so don't worry about being unsafe with dad not here either. You both are safe and I will be back as soon as I am done with what I need to do. Do you both get what I'm saying here?" he asks them and leans over and gives each of them a kiss on their heads that make them smile when he does it.

The kids were sad that their dad was leaving, so they didn't really say anything just yet, but both of them lean up in the beds and wraps their arms around Tails and hug onto him tightly, they not wanting him to leave and maybe not come back to them. Tails was fighting not to cry since this was hard for him right here to leave his kids behind, but he knew that he had to if he wanted them to be safe. If they were to come with him, then they might be hurt and that was something he would never let happen. Tails would give his own life if it would make his kids be safe from harm.

Once Tails was finished hugging and explaining about what he is doing to his kids, he quietly tucks them both back to bed and leaves the room, putting them back to sleep. They could sleep late today since it was the weekend and there was no school for either of them. Tails silently gets on up and turns their lights back out and leaves the room quietly. Tails then walks back over to the kitchen table where Mina was sitting and eating her own breakfast. "How did they take it?" asks Mina looking up when she sees him walk over towards her.

"Pretty well I think, though all three of us were near tears at one point during that." he says and shakes his head a little bit showing that he was pretty upset about leaving his kids behind like this, but he had to do it. Mina just smiles figuring something like that was going to happen, because she was most likely going to be in tears later today after he leaves and praying for his safety with whatever he does.

Tails reaches onto the table and grabs his belt, which Mina had already repacked back up while he was in there with the kids and saving him a few minutes. Tails had already mentally memorized where everything was so it wasn't like he needed to pack them all up so that he knew where everything was. Tails wraps his utility belt around his waist and clicks it in the front and makes sure it's tight and snug around his waist so that it wouldn't fall if he was running, flying or sliding. Whatever he was doing, that belt needed to hold onto him through it all. Once his belt was secure around his waist, he grabs his side satchel and throws it over his over his right shoulder. Tails then goes over near the door where he keeps more of his accessories he wears now. He grabs his old white gloves and casually slips those onto his hand, but then right afterwards, grabs some brown fingerless gloves and slips those over the white gloves and secures them on both of his hands just like that. He then bends down slightly and slips his feet into his tall brown boots, that he started wearing awhile back and secures these to his feet as well too. He then reaches up onto a coat rack and pulls off a brown looking scarf and wraps this around his neck very loosely that it hangs down around his neck, but it's secure enough that it wouldn't fall off.

Mina sat there and watched as Tails put all his equipment on. Once he was done, Mina walks on over to him and just can't help but give another hug to show that she really didn't want him to leave, but was supporting whatever Tails wanted to do now. Tails smiles and hugs her back before leaning in and gives her another loving kiss on the lips to show how much he loves her. This kiss didn't last that long, but once it was over, they just hold each other in each other's arms and stare in one another's eyes. "I love you Tails." she says and just continues to look in his eyes. "And I love you too my dear." says Tails and gives her one last hug before he slowly lets her go and opens the door walking into the hall. Tails turns and takes one last look back at Mina, who continues to look right into his eyes. Tails smiles once more and blows her a single kiss that she immediately returns. Tails shuts the door behind him as he leaves to start his journey.

Tails makes his way down the stairs from their full floor apartment home and down to the street, locking the outside door. Only people that live in the building have a key to get in, for safety reasons. Tails makes his way on down the street now, he going to head to airstrip where his plane is stored when not in use. As Tails is making his way down the street, he is waved out by a few people that he knows. There are even a few Dark Legion soldiers that wave to him or shake his hand, since he's been here for awhile not making trouble. They are actually pretty friendly in this area unlike in other parts of the world, though this is partially because the population here isn't that concerned with them being around at all.

Tails makes it to about midtown where there used to be a pretty nice fountain, but the fountain was replaced with a statue of the goddess Maria that everyone worships now. Anyone that knew Shadow before he took over would know exactly why Maria was now the new goddess of the world, but not many people seem to mind that at all since she was beautiful and did remind many people of a goddess so everyone just prayed to her constantly for prosperity and a better future pretty often. Her statue often had people on their hands and knees praying to it a few times a day. Tails and his family have done so on occasion, but it's not something they do heavily. Tails passes by the statue, placing a single coin in the coin box that sits there next to the statue that gives donations to their church before he continues on down the street to the airstrip.

Once Tails gets to airstrip, all he has to do is show his empire ID and the guards allow him to enter the airstrip so that he could go get his plane out of his private hangar. Tails puts his key into the little side door and enters into the hangar and presses a button nearby that makes the shutter in front of his plane. As the shutter is coming up Tails reaches over and pulls the dust cover off his plane and throws it over to the side, to show his bright yellow and sparkly colored plane that he has built about a few years ago. It was more for casual flying, but it could handle normal long distance flights. It was built as a two passenger plane with controls in the front and in the back, but normally, Tails just flew it alone.

As the shutter gets all the way up a single Dark Legion soldier looks into the hanger carrying a small clip board in his hand. "Well, Mr. Prower, I see we are going out for another flight today are we?" asks the soldier, this making Tails turn and look and smile seeing which soldier it is. It wasn't unusual for someone to come and make sure the correct people were getting into the right planes for security purposes.

"Oh hi Joe, yep, but I'm going on vacation for a little while." says Tails taking his side satchel and throwing it into the seat of his plane, where it would be at his side while he is flying. Tails figured he might as well tell he is going on vacation instead of going to do what he is planning on doing. That would raise red flags right away.

"Vacation? Where's your family then?" he asks walking over and actually removing his hood to show that he was a brown colored echidna with yellowish looking eyes and long brown dread locks. However, two of them are metal like most Dark Legion soldiers dreadlocks are. The echidna was at the same time looking over at Tails's plane as he is chatting with Tails now.

"They aren't coming, this is more of a business vacation you know?" says Tails as he steps off the wing of his plane and on down over towards the echidna. Tails figured business would be a better word for it, rather than trying to make a change in the world. This way he wouldn't raise any suspicion with his friend here.

"Ah, well, just gotta document you heading on out as usual, that way we know who is in and out, and if we need to send search parties and such you know, the usual." says Joe and just hands out the clipboard towards Tails, which he immediately takes to sign.

As Tails is signing his name to the form he questions Joe some more. "Hey Joe, would you mind while I'm away, if you could see if you could swing it with the guards if you can get them to have an extra patrol pass by my apartments just to make sure my family is ok while I'm away. I don't know how long I will be gone, but it would be very much appreciated you know?" asks Tails as he hands the clipboard on back to the brown echidna. Tails figuring he might as well asking, since this soldier was a friend of his, after going out from the hanger so often and seeing him so much.

Joe takes the clipboard and nods to Tails. "I'll see what I can do and hope you have a good trip. I'll be here when you get back and won't let anyone mess with your stuff here your hangar man." he says and walks on out of the hangar and immediately puts his hood on back up.

"Thanks Joe, see you later." says Tails and climbs back up onto the wings and hops into the pilots seat of his plane and then press a button to immediately start the engines firing up. The engines sputter alive and the blades on the front start to spin mega fast and normal, there seeming to be no problems at all with the plane as Tails checks all his gauges to make sure there wasn't anything he needed to do before he left the hangar. When Tails didn't see anything that needed any attention, he presses the peddle on the floor of the plane, and the plane finally starts to move forward and on out of the hangar over towards the runway. As Tails pulls out, he presses a button inside his plane that makes the hangar he just came out of start to close up and shut tightly so no one will go in there and mess with any of his tools and plane supplies he keeps in his hangar here. As Tails is slowly moving down the road towards the runway, he slips his headset onto his head and tunes it into the frequency it should be on and head onto the runway.

Once Tails makes it onto the runway, he stops at the end of his usual runway he takes off from and speaks out. "Do I have clearance to take off?" asks Tails to the people in the tower nearby, but there is soon a response to his question over his headset. Tails knew it wouldn't take that long for a response since the runway was almost always clear for him to take off right away from.

"You're clear Mr. Prower, clear skies and no activity, you are free to take off." says the voice over the headset, this making Tails smile that he has clearance and immediately presses the gas and makes his way speedily down the runway towards the end of it, but right before he reaches the end of the runway, he pulls back on his control stick and the plane takes off into the air and off to destination and adventure.

To Be Continued……


	3. Arrival

A Monarch's Corruption

Chapter 3: Arrival

It had been nearly twenty hours since Tails took off from the airport in Downunda. He had made on stop along the way for a fuel refill since it was a very long flight, but he was finally nearing New Mobotropolis. It was about four in the morning and it was still pitch black out as Tails was nearing the city. He could see a few lights in the distance that was probably the signs of life that he had been looking for and was greatly relieved to finally see coming up. Tails changes his trajectory and heads for the lights so that he could land.

When Tails though got only a few miles outside of the city there was a beep on his headset signaling that someone was trying to contact him for some reason. Tails reaches up and was about to press the button to turn the headset on so that he could respond, when someone instead hacked his headset and it came on anyway. "This is New Mobotropolis air control. You are in restricted royal airspace and do not have verification to be in this area. If you do not turn around and leave in thirty seconds, we will be forced to shoot your vessel down. Leave now, this is your only warning!" said a strong strict voice over Tails' headset that kind of started him. He didn't need to think twice about what he just heard and changes the direction he is flying to look like he is flying away from the city.

This was a problem for Tails, it seems that all air vessels weren't allowed near the capital city for some reason, which was a surprise to him, since he knew there was an airport in the city. He was going to have to find a place to land somewhere nearby to the city it seemed and was going to have to walk into the city by foot if he could. That was usually not Tails' preferred style, but if it was his only way to get to the city, he really had no other choice, since he hadn't even gotten to the city yet and already was having problems. Hopefully it wasn't a predictor of his luck to come in the future during this trip.

Tails has to scan the area very carefully with a search light on his plane, since it was still dark out, to find a place to land the plane. He did luck out and there was a clearing still only a few miles outside of the city. Tails lowers his landing gear and slowly starts to drop his altitude. As the plane starts to get closer to the ground, he pushes the control on forward to make the plane descend and his speed slowly starts to drop as he makes his approach. His lights lower down towards the ground to illuminate where he is landing and his wheels slowly touch the grass as there is a massive jerk as the plane hits the ground. Tails immediately puts on the brakes the moment he feels the wheels hit the ground. The plane starts to skid since he did hit the brakes to the plane a bit hard as it starts to scrap and tear up the grass up under his wheels, leaving and obvious mark to where he is landing, but he would rather that than make a long landing and risk running out of room. Tails immediately cuts the engines, they coming to an immediate stop as he continues to press the breaks down hard. It took only about a hundred feet before Tails had come to a complete stop, as he sits there in the plane, the land around him not totally silent, except for the small bit of humming from his engines as they start to cool on down.

Tails Takes a deep breath and unbuckles his seatbelt harness and stands on up climbing out of the cockpit of his plane. Once he was standing on the wing, he reaches in grabbing his side satchel and throws it over his shoulder and locks the front so that no one could easily slip a hand inside and take 

anything. He didn't know if the people in town were like that or not, since he hadn't been there in such a long time, but he wasn't about to take a single chance and risk his stuff getting stolen if it was going to happen.

Tails was pushing the plan as hard as he could with all his strength, it actually was moving though. He didn't want to leave the plane out in the open and get spotted, since if anyone looked at the side of his plane, they would see his symbol plastered all over the side of the plane. Anyone that has ever heard of him or his inventions would immediately recognize that symbol and if anyone figured out who he was then his cover would be blow and the people in the area would then know he was there and he probably wouldn't be able to find out anything he needed to know if he was recognized. He was going to have to change himself at least a tad when he enters town so that he wasn't spotted.

Tails would deal with that issue in a moment, but right now, he needed to get his plane hidden. He grunts hard and pushes it more and more until it finally gets over to some very tall grass and some trees as well as he struggles to get the wheels and plane all the way into the grass before he just fall onto his rear and breaths hard and has to take a small break before he would be able to do anything else. That plane was heavy and it took a lot out of him to push it into some covering.

After Tails took a ten minute break to catch his breath, he immediately flies up into some of the nearby trees and starts to rip out as many branches as he can and flies on down back to his plane and starts to place sticks and branches over his plane to hide it. Doing this was going to make it near impossible to make a quick getaway if he really needed to, but staying hidden right now was what he needed to be more concerned with it. If he was later found to be in the area, then being sneaky wasn't going to be such a high priority as it was right now, but right now, it was.

It took Tails several trips but he eventually did get his plane totally covered in branches, sticks and leaves. It nearly looked invisible and unless you were standing right on top of the plane, it wouldn't be able to be spotted in the least. He had done a good job, but the skid marks that were still in the grass nearby were a worry to him, since he knew if anyone walked or flew over this area, they would see the skids and know something happened here, and if they found the plane, it would most likely be taken away. Tails didn't have any equipment with him right now though to deal with the skids, and with the fact that it was still really dark out, he was just going to leave the skids and hope for the best.

Once he all done with everything he needed to do with his plane, Tails throws his satchel back over his shoulder once again and makes his way over towards a nearby road where he would walk into town like a normal person. Even though Tails didn't like it, he had a shirt he had pulled out of his plane and had slipped it on himself, and he also put a pair of sunglasses on his head and a pair of regular glasses on his eyes as well. He didn't really need the glasses, but he did use them from time to time anyway. He figured at least looking a tad bit of a change in his appearance like this might aid him in blending in and looking less like his old self.

Tails takes a deep breath now and continues to walk on down the road now towards the city. Tails hadn't been to New Mobotropolis in so many years now that he wasn't sure he was going to be able to remember how to get around the city even when he does get there. Though, there is no telling how the 

city is even going to look now that it has been under Shadow's rule for so long now. It could look the same, it could be trashed, it could look better, though that one Tails doubted from the rumors he had heard about how this city looked now. He was hoping it wasn't too bad, because he wanted to know if his old home or any of his friends still lived around the city. He did have sort of low hopes on all of his expectations of the city, since many people tell you to never get your hopes up when you come to this city.

Tails was only about a mile out of the city when the lights were starting to get a bit brighter. Apparently there were still lots of lights in the city, even this early in the morning. Tails checks his watch again it nearing six in the morning already, so there was a tad of sunlight off in the distance, but it was still pretty early for most people to be up, at least in his area, no one was up this early, and especially on a Sunday, when most people were allowed to sleep mega late. It was one of Tails' favorite days since it was his lazy day where he could usually be with Mina all day long, and also usually snuggle in bed with her for awhile before having to get the kids their breakfast. Thinking of all this started to make Tails blush some thinking of some of the other Sunday mornings that he had had with Mina, he rather not mentioning those, though it does go to tell you something that in Downunda, for some reasons, kids tend to be born on this day more often than any other day of the week it seems. People never thought anything about it, but it always had fascinated Tails about that little fact.

Tails being so into his thoughts didn't almost didn't even realize that he was about to walk into town now. He did though catch this in time to look up and go wide eyed at what he saw. The old walls that had the shield generator had been totally redone since the last time he had seen it. The walls were now much higher and also tall spikes up at the top that were partly for decoration, but also to make the wall now mega hard to climb over. At the main entrance to the two were at least four guards, two standing down by the large double doors and two up in two guard houses up to the left and right above the door. it seemed security in the town was pretty tight, so that was going to make it hard for Tails to get in he thought. He had only one idea at the moment and if it didn't work, he would have to find an alternate way in, but this city having no trees around the walls also made it that more hard to be able to sneak in if he needed to. He just had to hope that his first plan was going to work.

Tails walked up towards the gate and a light was shined at him from one of the guard tower as one of the familiar dark legion soldiers walks over towards Tails now with a rifle in hand, but he not looking too aggressive at the moment. "Identification sir." he asks Tails not wasting time. Tails then puts on a confused look to the soldier, he wanting to make this look real and not fake at all. "Excuse me sir? What is this identification that I need? I'm just a wanderer and traveler and usually don't come to cities that often. I used to live here long ago and wish to come and visit my old stomping grounds." says Tails as he tries to sound legitimate in what he was telling the soldier hoping that he would buy it and maybe let him without ID confirmation. The soldier eyes Tails and sees him carrying a traveler's satchel and a survival belt, and that story did seem to fit why he would be carrying these things on him like this. "Hmmm, well that does sort of make sense. You don't have any weapons in your satchel do you?" asks the soldier, he wanting to at least uphold that part of his duty.

Tails had to make this sound right or he might be searched and the other items he found might get him in trouble, since of them yes could be considered survival gear, but he was still a little over stocked for a simple traveler. "Well, yes, but everything I have is used for pure survival. I don't use a weapon on anything unless I plan to eat it. Can you please find it in your heart to let me in sir? I will get one of those ID things you need once I get inside if I can get them there." says Tails trying to sound pitiful now to the guard. He was doing a pretty good job of this acting, and the guard seemed to be buying it. "Well, as long as any weapons you take in are not used and you get an ID as soon as you can I will let you in, but you have until tomorrow at noon to come show me that you have gotten an ID or I will get the guards inside the city to come look for you to make you leave. We can't have unregistered citizens inside this city. Don't you know who lives here?" asks the dark legion soldier, he seeming to have weakened enough to actually believe what Tails had to say to him.

Tails smiles and nods to the guard. "Oh yes sir, this is where the king lives. I used to live here during the last ruler, but I still would always like to meet the new ruler one day. I've only seen him on tv screens before." says Tails now trying to act even more out of the loop and such to keep his story going that was sounding better by the minute as he told it. He almost could believe it himself, that is if he didn't know it was all a big lie to try and get into the city without being found out he was here.

The dark legion soldier waves up the guards above him hearing Tails' response to that. "Alright, I will believe you this time, but get that ID or like I said, I will send out some people to get you. The king wants his citizens all recorded so that we know who everyone is. It is just a way to keep us all in check. Now be on your way." says the guard and the doors finally open as Tails takes a sigh of relief and walks on into the city. The doors immediately shut behind him, and he is now stuck inside the city until he can find another way out really or those guards let him back out the same way he came in.

Tails looks around and is astonished at what he sees, there are still houses all around in the city, but many of them don't look as nice as they used to, it looks like none of them have had renovations in many years. The streets were literally littered with dark legion soldiers. Many were walking down the streets, while there were a few in their saucer like hovercrafts flying around the city going from place to place. It was obvious this place was not like Downunda at all from just his initial first looks. The security around here was tight, and they certainly kept the city looked after and under their control. That does probably mean that the citizens are well protected, but with all the laws that might be in acted around here, there is no telling how their ways of life are still.

Tails continues to glance around the city and he continues to see many more of the goddess Maria statues around the city, but there so many more than there are back home where there is just the one right in the center of the city. It was obvious that the king liked the goddess if she was around his capital city so much like this. These unlike some of the buildings he has passed so far, all look to be in perfect condition and polished as well. These obviously were well taken care of, and not allowed to get messed up like some of the other things around this city that are in serious need of fixing.

Tails could also see the castle off in the center of the city where it always was. The castle now instead of white though was a light black color and the flags now instead of being the symbol of the acorn were 

now the black and red of Shadow in the middle of a black colored flag. There were so many lights around the towers of the castle it was well guarded so as to prevent all intruders from getting into the castle. That was probably another one of Shadow's ideas, he is well protected and looked after while the citizens may be protected, but aren't living in as good of conditions as he is up there in that castle. Tails just shakes his head to that and continues to walk on down the street.

Tails was going to head to his when there is a ding heard nearby him as he looks over near one of the maria statues and sees a large clock strike six in the morning. There were bells under the clock and then he slowly heard five other dings that went along with that first one. Tails was about to disregard all of this when he saw the guards all start to head to houses and start to knock on the doors pretty hard for some reasons that Tails didn't understand. It only took a moment before people start to exit their home and walk on down the streets towards him and then on past him. "Huh?" thought Tails and wonders where these people are going as he sees the soldiers then go and start to knock on other door and they seem to be waking up even more people as well.

Tails was about to stop and ask someone what was going on, when he gets a bump in his back and turns to come face to face with another masked dark legion soldier. "Get moving sir, no loitering at this time." says the soldier to him in a strict voice. "Can you please tell me what this is about?" asks Tails to the soldier he taking on a confused look at this moment, which really wasn't part of his act, since he literally was confused about this. "You know the rules. It's Sunday and six in the morning. It's time for all you residents to head to the Grand Church of the Goddess Maria for Sunday church. It's the law. If you don't go we will be forced to take you in." says the soldier immediately to Tails' question and sounded very serious about what he just told him.

Tails was caught in utter shock at what he had just heard. It was the law here in this city for all the people to go and worship and have church at six in the morning for the goddess, even if they didn't want to or not. If you didn't go you were apparently arrested for it. Tails just couldn't believe this, but since he was trying to blend in right now, he had to go along with it. Tails nods to the soldier and turns and just follows the other citizens towards the church since he didn't know where this church existed, since this church wasn't here when he left the city.

Tails only had to walk a few blocks before he sees a large church that had stained glass mirrors of the goddess Maria all over them, as well as empire's flag waving on the top of the church as well to show it was the official church in town. Tails just kind of shakes his head at all this and willingly walks over and up the elaborate steps of the church so that he could head inside with the others. The soldiers didn't mind him taking his goods inside the building at all. Though Tails thought it strange, even the church had exterior guards. Dark legion soldiers just literally were everywhere in this town.

Once Tails got into the church he was finally able to look around the inside. Inside there were rows and rows of long pews all over the church. There was even a second floor that had more pews on it as well. The place had to accommodate for the entire city, so there needed to be plenty of space. It even looked like they might be about to add a third level of pews as well, since there was more wood and metal just laying around inside the church and a new staircase being put in. The pastors' podium was up on a small 

elevated stage, so it would be visible for people on all levels of the church. There was also a microphone and speakers all around the church as well so that everyone could hear what he had to say to everyone. That was at least helpful and it seemed that this church actually did care about the members actually being able to hear the sermon, whatever that was going to be on, but still, you were forced to come here at this early hour on the day Tails usually thought of as his day of rest. He really didn't think this was right at all.

Tails takes a seat in one of the ground level pews of the church, near the front and just sits there as more and more people start to pour into the church. He does turn his head to look and see if he sees any familiar faces in the crowd, but strangely he doesn't see a single person that remotely looks like any of his close friends or family, and that had him worried and wondering what has happened to everyone. He hoped they were all still alive, but if they weren't here in this church, that might could mean that either they have moved somewhere else or at the other end of the spectrum, they could all be gone for good. He didn't want to think about that though at all since he wanted to see them all again.

Tails continues to sit there as the church continued to fill up when he saw someone head up onto the podium up front, this obviously the preacher about to start the sermon. Tails had heard a few sermons before on this religion, though even though he knew some of the things in it are false, he just went along with it as to not get in trouble. The preacher was wearing a long black robe that looked like the ones that the dark legion all wear, but this guy had his food down to show that he was another echidna, just like most or the entire dark legion were anyway, so it was no surprise this preacher was one as well.

"Good to see you all here as usual everyone. We might as well get started with my sermon since that is what you all came here for." says the preacher echidna as he pulls out a small book from his deep pockets. Tails saw one of the same books sitting in a little pocket in the back of the pew in front of him and grabs it just like everyone else was doing in the church. "Alright, today we will be talking about the new coming of our goddess. You all know about how all of it began when the overlanders killed the original vessel of our great and wonderful goddess when she was still young. They didn't want her to grow up and potentially help us all in our world. They thought by killing her they would hurt our world greatly and maybe make there's a better place. As you can see, our land is not as pretty as it once was, but we have all been out working to try and make our homes a better place, just like our wonderful king has done in his searches to try and bring back our goddess to us all. On the day of her returning, the land will all be bright green as far as you can see, and all people opposed to her will be punished for their disbelief. She will go and join our wonderful king and bring him and the rest of us into a new golden age, where we will all prosper and live in joy for the rest of our days."

Tails couldn't really believe what he was hearing here. He knew the story about Maria and what happened to her back on the Ark so long ago, and yes she was killed by GUN, this was a complete twist on the story it sounded like to him. Tails just continues to listen though, since he couldn't interrupt without getting in trouble. "With the goddess help, our king will help bring our entire great world into one nation with no wars or strife ever again. Everyone will be happy and have plenty of happiness every day of their lives. There will be no more suffering and no more fighting. We will all life together in happiness and bliss forever more. Our land will be safe for all eternity and our lives will change forever." 

says the preacher in a happy sounding voice to everyone. Most of the people also seem to be smiling as well and a few even looking near tears.

Tails could see from the look on these people's face that they all believed all of this. He just simply shook his head and looked down. He couldn't believe all of what he was hearing, but there was nothing he could do for these people. They had been told what they wanted to hear, so they loved the goddess and the king even more just by coming to this sermon. That's when the preacher motions to someone and a young female echidna walks on up onto the stage with the preacher and goes over to a piano that was nearby and sat on down. "Now everyone, we will sing a song to our lovely goddess as the collection plates go around for you all to place a contribution to your goddess." says the preacher turns to the female echidna and nods to her as she then starts to play a pretty nice sounding song. Right after she started to play, a couple of dark legion soldiers walk in with collection plates and start to pass them around. People were mainly just sticking one or two coins into the trays, which Tails did himself just to go along with the others and places a single coin into the tray as he listened to the rest of the song.

Once the song was over and the plates were fully collected, they were brought to the front of the church and placed there near the preacher. The plates were all pretty full from the looks of it. So many contributions were bound to be why this church was still in such great shape and so nice inside and out while other things in town aren't as nice as this now. After that song, the preacher started to talk once again for at least another twenty minutes about the return of the goddess before he held up both of his hands with a serious look on his face. "Everyone, I am pleased you all came to this service, but before we go, we must say the prayer of the goddess Maria. So please stand up and get ready to recite the grand prayer." says the preacher as everyone in the church starts to get to their feet.

Tails got to his feet as well and would at least pretend he knew the prayer, but to be honest he never had heard this prayer before so he was just going to listen in. That's about when the prayer started now. "Dear oh great goddess Maria, we give our thanks to you for bring us all into this life and allowing us to live under your rule. You have the purest heart of all, and even though many of us sin often, you bring it into your heart to forgive us even when we take your great love for granted. We pray for you future return to us all and that it will be one day soon as we all miss you greatly. Bring us food and ever lasting peace as we pray to you oh great goddess Maria. We give thanks to you and all those who are loyal to you, amen." says the preacher and everyone else in the entire church as they said the prayer with the preacher.

"Alright everyone, that is all for church at this time. Be sure and come back this evening at six for the evening service and dinner so that we may honor our wonderful Maria once again." says the preacher as he turns to start to leave the stage as the others in the church are getting up to start leave now as well. Tails immediately stands up and exits the church along with everyone else in the town that was in there. Once they got all outside, the other furs all start to head on back towards their homes right away. Most of them all still looking tired, so Tails figured it was time for most of them to now go back and get back to sleep, since they had been awake for so long already this early.

Tails looks and saw he was pretty close to the castle when he was in this church, though he had some other place he wanted to go. He wasn't interested in the castle right now. Right now, Tails wanted to find his old home and see if he could find any clues there about what might have happened while he was gone. He remembers exactly where he used to live and heads right towards it. It was about six or so blocks away from the church, which was a good thing for him, since he didn't have to walk that far.

Once Tails got to the street he was thinking up, he could see that the house he used to live in with his parents was still there, but it looked abandoned though. That though was what Tails kind of wanted, because if there were any clues left there, they would still be intact and not moved around from someone else living there. Tails heads over to the front door and pushes on the door finding that the door wasn't locked, but was in fact still open. Tails turns the handle and walks into his old house.

Tails walks into the house and looks seeing there a lot of dust inside the place, but not very many items inside it still. One look at this and Tails could tell that his parents had most likely moved out, which could mean they were still alive somewhere and he wanted to find them the most of all, since it had been so long since he had seen them. That's when he looked over to his right and saw that an old table that used to be there was still there, yet had a piece of paper tacked onto the table though as if it was there on purpose. He couldn't help it and blew on it to blow the dust off it, and there was writing all on this paper and it was in his parents' handwriting. Tails immediately grabs the piece of paper to read what it had to say.

"Hi son, I'm sure this is you reading this, since we made it so that no one else would be able to get into this house but you if you ever did return home. I'm sorry we are both not still here in this house, but we felt it time to move to a better place. We were told that moving to angel island was a better place to live than the capital city here since yes there is heavy occupation there too, but the crime rates and rules there aren't as bad as they were at the time we left. If we are still alive and you are still alive, you should come find us. Please try and not get in trouble son, we love you and look forward to seeing you again one day if you're reading this. This next part would be a bit hard for you to handle but if you can I would like you to look into it. You remember how your friend Sonic and Rotor were thrown into jail all those years ago. There are rumors that they are still down there in the dungeon of the castle being tortured even to this day. If there is ever some way you can get in there and at least make contact with them that would be mega helpful to us all. There has to be a reason at least why the king put Rotor down there as well. He must know something that we don't know, and if you can find out what that was, you might be able to help us all. We never could confirm it, and we tried a few times when were invited to the castle, but each time we failed and had to make up an excuse as to why we had wondered off. If you do or don't find anything, please come to New Echindaopolis as soon as possible. We would love to speak with you. As well many of your old friends moved there as well. It seemed the best we could do since we couldn't go as far away as you could to get away from the tyrant. We hope to see you again our son. Love Mr. and Mrs. Prower."

Tails hearing that, looks out the window right next to where he is standing holding the note and can see the tall black castle outside of it in the distance. Even though it looked near impossible from all the guards that were around it and such, that was where he was going to have to go next. The only problem 

he could see that he was going to have was getting in. There had to be a way to get in there. If he was spotted, he would be caught and everything he has come to do will have been for nothing. Tails had to get into that castle and find the truth, one way or another he was going to get in there. He just had to think up a plan on how he was going to do that. One thing about Tails though, he never gave up, he would find a way in there.


	4. The New Castle Acorn

A Monarch's Corruption  
Chapter 4: The New Castle Acorn

Tails knew there had to be some way of getting into that castle without being seen. He wasn't sure how he would do that, but he just had to try. Tails folds up the letter from his parents the slips it into his satchel where it would be safe. Tails then heads over to the front door ready to leave his home and find that way to the castle. He was determined to.

"Halt there!" says a voice suddenly behind Tails as he was closing the door. Tails immediately froze in his steps and raises his arms above his head, he not sure what he might have done. "Turn around now and tell me what you were doing in there? Vandalizing an abandoned home were you?" asks the same voice.

Tails keeps his hands up in the air as he turns around to see who it was. It was just as he expect. Not far from him was another Dark Legion soldier with his blaster pointed right at Tails. Tails had to keep his cool. If he were to run or react in some suspicious way, this soldier might take things the wrong way or try and arrest him. If that were to happen, then Tails was most likely going to be thrown in the dungeon as well just because of who he was.

"No sir, I wasn't stealing from this home, but I did think I saw someone else in there burglarizing it. He was just going back in a second time to get more old furniture when I saw him. You might want to go see if he is still in there." says Tails quickly thinking up another excuse to get out of trouble again. He wasn't sure if the echidna was going to work but he thought he might as well give it a shot.

The soldier was hesitant at first, but he eventually put his gun down and made his way over to Tails slowly. "You had better be telling the truth. Now move out of the way and let me check this out citizen." says the echidna soldier putting his blaster back up to his shoulder and slowly starts to enter the house, he not watching Tails anymore.

Tails couldn't believe that had worked, but seeing that soldier just walk past him like that and into the house, he got a pretty sneaky idea that left a soft grin on his face. Tails turns and begins to quietly follow the soldier into the soldier into the house. The soldier turns around hearing a creak on the floor and points his gun at Tails again not sure who that was at first, but he soon just shaking it off and looking the other way again. "You're lucky I don't have a trigger happy finger fox. Now where in this house did you see this intruder?" asks the soldier looking around again only seeing three doors in the current room, so he knew he had to choose the correct route or the intruder might get away.

Tails carefully shuts the front door behind him quietly as the soldier said that to him. "I think I saw him head straight ahead." says Tails. When the soldier turns to that direction, he facing completely away from the fox, Tails makes a quick dash forward and shoots his hand out delivering a swift karate chop to the back of the echidna's neck, dropping him immediately to the ground with a loud thud of the wooden floor.

Tails lets out a relieved sigh and kneels down to the echidna just to check his status to make sure he was unconscious like he had planned to do. "Good, he's out. Now is my chance." says Tails as he grabs the echidna and grunts pretty hard as he begins to drag him into the room that he had just told the echidna to head into. He leans the echidna up against the wall of the old guest bedroom and just lets him stay there for the moment.

"I guess I better hurry and get this over with before he wakes up." says Tails as proceeds to take off his utility belt, his satchel, gloves, and his boots as well. He carefully and neatly placed this on the ground and heads over to the unconscious echidna and starts to try and undress him. It wasn't that hard to do, since most legion all wore the same long black robe. When Tails gets the robe off, he just leaves the echidna lying on the ground in nothing but his boxers, he having taken the black gloves and boots from him as well.

When Tails is fully dressed in the robe, the first thing he does is pull the red face mask over his face so that he wouldn't be seen that he was a fox and keeps the hood pretty tight around his head. He wasn't going to allow himself to be discovered like this, which would be disastrous. Tails then scoots over to his satchel, reaches in and pulls out the rope Mina packed for him. He then reaches in his utility belt and pulls out the pocket knife as well. The rope wasn't that long, but this was a perfect use for it. He proceeds to push his pocket knife into the middle of the rope and saws right through it cutting it right in half.

Tails scoots back over to the echidna and pulls the echidna's hands behind his back and ties them together with the first half of the rope. He takes the second half and ties the echidna's legs together as well. He wasn't taking a chance of this guy waking up early and alerting others of his presence here. Tails takes the tape he brought as well and puts some over the echidna's mouth just to be on the safe side as well. He picks up the echidna's identification and blaster and stands back up looking exactly like a Dark Legion soldier.

When he was ready, Tails makes his way over to the front door and shuts it closed once again just the way he left it. If he was successful he would be back later to do the exchange over again. Tails makes his way down the street trying to walk as casually as he can, so that no one would think there was anything different between him and any other soldier walking the streets. It did seem to be working though. Not one person was questioning him as he made his way towards the palace just ahead.

The black palace had changed a lot since the days of Sally and Elias being on the throne for the time they were. For one, the castle used to be white, not black like it is now. There were more towers that have been added over time, but also a lot of spikes have been added to the sides or tops of walls to make it look more dangerous and scary looking it seemed. There were guards everywhere around the palace. Guards standing on balconies, guards on the roof tops, about two dozen making round trip patrols around the outside of the castle, and four more standing at the main entrance as well. It was very well guarded.

Tails makes his way over to the main gate where one guard holds out his hand to Tails. "ID soldier." he says to Tails. He quickly pulls out the Identification that he took from this soldier and holds it out to the guard. The echidna pulls his hood off for a moment, showing he was very dark red echidna with all his dreadlocks made of metal, so that he could get a closer look at the ID. "Alright Corporal Conner, you're clear, but may I ask why you have your mask down?" asks the guard handing the ID back to Tails now.

Tails does the only thing that comes to mind and starts to cough some and make his voice sound scratchy. "Oh that's because I have a cold and don't want to spread it around." says Tails and coughs some once again after he finishes saying that. This making most of the guards step back some when he begins coughing. "Oh uh, sure, go right ahead sir." says the echidna and gives three knocks on the front door. There was soon a clicking sound before the door slowly started to crack open to allow Tails to go inside.

Tails sighs happily, he not really able to believe he had just gotten away with that, but apparently either he was smarter than he thought, or security wasn't as tight as it could be around here. Tails makes his way into the main hall of the castle, and stops dead in his tracks. He couldn't believe what he was seeing; the interior had been completely changed to the point where he barely recognized the place anymore.

The walls in here were painted black with red stripes all over the place to make the room darker, even in the day time. There were lit candle along the wall to bring some light into the room, but there were lights were positioned in such a way to make it look slightly creepy. Statues of Shadow as he used to look were placed in various places throughout the hall, along with more statues of Maria. The countries new flag was hung on the wall in a couple of places. There also several paintings of Shadow, Maria, and other echidna's that most likely high up or important people to shadow if they can get their faces on his castle walls. Shadow had really giving this place a much more gothic slash medieval feel that it used to.

The hall was full of more guards that were there just in case, but there were a couple of ordinary citizens waiting around too. They either there for a tour or waiting for an audience, but either way, the guards were watching them closely as they browsed the artwork here in the main hall. Tails looks around for a moment before he sees one of the side doorways that he recognized and heads down it into the halls of the castle. He wasn't going to go near the throne room, just in case Shadow was around.

Tails makes his way down this dimly lit hallway as he proceeds to look for the way to the dungeon. He was pretty sure he knew where the dungeon was, but with the way this castle had changed, that was going to be tricky. Most of the doors as well now have been made to look older as well, they all made of wood and having small bars on the top so someone could look in and out, but no one could get into them.

As Tails is walking down the hall, he is being passed by other guards, but none of them are paying any attention to Tails, since he did look the part with his cloak and blaster in hand. Since he had no idea which door he had to check, Tails decided he just better start checking doors to see which ones the dungeon might be. He just walks up to one of the doors and turns the handle to walk inside.

When he walks in, he immediately goes wide eyed. He seemed to have walked into the western dining room, and it was chuck full of Dark Legion guards all eating their breakfast at the moment. He immediately turns back around and leaves without a second thought, he breathing a bit hard now at having seen what he had just seen. "Wrong room." he says leaning against the wall.

It took a moment before Tails caught his breath but when he does, he proceeds to head down the hall once again. From now on though, Tails thought he had better check through the small window first before he enters a room, or else something more serious might happen. Once he was fully calm and brave enough to check another door, he walks over to the door and peers in through the window this time.

When he looks through this one he gets an even bigger shock as he quickly moves out of the way and stands to the side just trying to look like he was on guard like any other soldier might be. Out of the room walked a couple of Dark Legion guards, followed by red female echidna with wild red hair and a couple of metal dreadlocks. She was wearing a near skin tight black outfit with the front open slightly showing her chest. Tails immediately knew who this was and knew if she caught him, he was toast. It was Lien-Da, Shadow's head general coming from her personal quarters and seemed to be heading back the way Tails came towards the main hall. Tails quickly gives her a salute, which she returns and passes him by without giving it a second thought.

Once she had passed, Tails basically collapses onto his bottom and leans up against the wall. He was breathing pretty hard now, he just relieved he hadn't been caught by her, but his nerves were starting to get to him. "I can't believe I'm doing this. This is harder than I thought." he says to himself. He sits there for a moment before another guard comes walking down the hall and looks over at Tails sitting on the floor like that. "YOU! No breaks! Now get back on patrol!" yells the guard startling Tails to his feet, and quickly gives the other echidna a salute to show respect and runs ahead some to get out of his way and act like he was behind on his patrol.

Once Tails had made it down the hall a little bit, he simply starts walking again to go back to acting like a guard on duty. He was about to head back and try the east hall when he reaches the end of the east hall, he having gone completely around to the back of the castle it seemed from this hall and there stood two guards in front of a particular door, this one actually having a label on it with the word dungeon over it. "Of course the room I would need would be guarded." he says to himself and makes his way over to the guards to try and figure out a way inside.

The guards look up seeing Tails and hold out their hands again. "Halt, are you the one here to relieve us so we can go to breakfast?" asks one of the guards, the other one taking his hood off, He looked tired from the way his eyes had black marks under his eyes. He was most likely an evening guard and was looking for his relief so that he could go eat and get some sleep.

Tails couldn't believe his luck. He quickly nods and makes his voice all scratchy again as he talks. "Yes, you two may go ahead. My second will be here soon, he was running late, but told me to go on ahead." says Tails trying to sound uptight, but does cough like at the front door. These two looking pretty happy and immediately start to walk back the way Tails came, to go get something to eat. When they were both gone, Tails pushes open the dungeon door and heads inside.

When he goes in, he immediately has to proceed down some stairs, which was typical of a dungeon for one to have to go below ground to get to it. They were a pretty long flight of stairs, but eventually Tails does make it to the bottom. When he gets there, there were a couple of torches on the wall and a couple of cells around him, but most of them looked to be empty at the moment, there was one rabbit male asleep on one of the cots in one of the cells, but he was it. He was most likely someone that got arrested and was serving his time down here.

Tails proceeds further into the dungeon before he comes to another big door with some heavy locks on it. He reaches out and pulls the handle but it was locked. Tails was about to look around to see if he could find the keys when he simply looks to the left of the door and sees a key hanging on the wall inside a little crevice that was just barely visible. It wasn't in plain sight, but it was just right there. Tails takes the key and unlocks the door with it. He immediately puts the key back and proceeds into this room.

This was another part of the dungeon, but in here, there were arm and leg laser chain holders all installed along the wall. Most all of them, were deactivated at the moment but about midway down the hall one pair was active and someone was hanging on the wall, someone familiar looking. Tails makes his way quietly over towards the person hanging there and gasps pretty hard when he sees who it was. It was Rotor.

Just as his parents said, he was still down here, but he seemed to be all alone though. He was wearing some pretty old looking clothes, his arms had red line like blood marks on them, and he had a beard now as well. Rotor looks up when he hears someone getting close and just gives a scowl to Tails showing he was not happy to see a soldier down here with him. "So what is it you want this time you echidna skum? You here to clean or try and get more information out of me?" he asks in a clearly ticked off voice.

Tails did feel sorry for him, but wasn't sure what he could do at the moment to help him, since he tried to get him out of here, he would definitely be caught. "You don't have to worry about anything Rotor." says Tails in his normal voice now instead of the fake one he had been using on his way in here. Rotor though didn't seem to buy into that though and scowls even more.

"Oh, so this time trying the good guy, bad guy approach, well I'm sorry but I won't talk ok!" he practically yells out in furry to Tails and pulls on his chains a little bit. But he had no strength from how the plasma laser chains barely reacted when he pushed forward. After that little outburst, Rotor simply lets himself go limp again in the chain and just lays there.

"Well Rotor, I think you may want to talk when you see that it's me." says Tails as he pulls the red flap up and pulls the hood down showing Rotor who it was behind the mask. This practically startled Rotor more than he had ever seen someone get startled before in his life. "Tails! What the! How the heck did you get down here!" he says looking pretty shocked but also happy to see one of his olds friends here in front of him.

"Shhhh, keep your voice down Rotor. Yes it's me, I snuck in here when I found a letter upon my return telling me that you and Sonic were still down here in this dungeon after all this time. I can see that you're still down here, but where is Sonic? Is he in another part of the dungeon?" asks Tails trying to see if Rotor would be willing to answer some questions with it being him here now instead of a Dark Legion guard.

Rotor looks down for a moment before looking back up at Tails and gives him a grin. "You'll be glad to know that Sonic is no longer down here. Sonic escaped a couple of months back when some guards got very lazy when they had to take him to be cleaned. He knocked them both out and left the dungeon in the same way you walked in, he dressed as one of the Legion soldiers he knocked out and just walked right out of the castle I think. It took awhile before his escape was discovered down here, so I'm sure he got away. The bad thing is though, is that Sonic has been tied up or beaten so much that he was in no shape to run out of here. He was pretty skinny when he left. He might be in shape again or he may not, but being down here with me, he wasn't aging as well as he should have if he had still been active." says Rotor telling all this at once. He seemed to have been dying to tell someone this for a long time and was now being able to just let it out.

Tails was rather shocked but stayed quiet and listened to all this and did feel sorta bad for Sonic. He had been down here all these years and had to simply sneak out of the castle instead of going through by force like he used to like to do just to show off to his enemy. He must have been in pretty bad shape to try something like that. "Well, if Sonic did make it out, is there any way you would know where he went so that I could go find him?" asks Tails hoping that Rotor had told Sonic where to go or Sonic did back to Rotor.

"Luckily for you, we had discussed it for a long time, that if one of us were to ever escape to head to the ruins of our old HQ. I told him to collapse the main entrance and make a secondary hidden entrance so that no one would know he was there while he recovered. If Sonic made it out, that is most likely where he is hanging out. If the place was never raided, Nichole should still be in service there as well. She had a couple of backup hard drives hidden around the land just in case something like this happened and I told Sonic how to find one of them. She deleted herself from the hard drive here in the city shortly after the invasion to avoid capture." says Rotor willingly telling Tails all this classified information that not even he knew.

Tails never knew that Nichole had hidden backups of herself just in case of invasion. If Tails could have her along, that would aid him a lot, and having Sonic would help as well in more ways than one. "Thanks, I'll be sure and check into finding out what has happened to Sonic. You don't have to worry Rotor. I'm going to find a way to fix everything or die trying to at least." says Tails grinning as he walks close to Rotor and pats him on the shoulder.

"I'm glad to hear old friend, but just leave me here. There is nothing I can do to help you in the fight, but give you more information. I'll tell you anything I can that you might need. Once you're done, I want you to sneak back out and leave this city. From what I have heard from other prisoners, it isn't pretty." says Rotor more calmly now looking up at Tails.

"Yeah, it's pretty nuts out there. I doubt if you haven't been out there, you wouldn't want to. But yes, I was planning to also head to Angel Island and find my parents and other friends. The letter I found said they had moved there and I have wanted to find and visit them for so long, after I moved away with Mina." says Tails smiling at that part.

"I'm happy to hear about you and Mina Tails. But yes, if you are going to Angel Island, from what I have heard from Lien-Da when she comes down here, you will want to be careful not to get on the enforcers bad side when you get there. I hear he can be reasonable, but if you piss him off, he won't hesitate to use deadly force against you. I haven't seen who he was, but Lien-Da mentions him all the times in the reports I hear her give from time to time on her communicators." says Rotor.

"Noted and will do Rotor. Thanks, all the information your giving is a real help. I'll go hunt down Sonic first and then proceed to Angel Island to find the others. I sure hope it doesn't take too long to do so, because I hate to leave you down here any longer." says Tails.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine Tails. I've been down here twenty-five years. I'm not going anywhere, so there is no need to worry. Now go ahead and go before.." that's when there were steps being heard heading down the stairs to the dungeon that Tails had come down when he came into the dungeon.

Rotor looks up and now begins to look nervous. "Tails quick, hide! There is a supply closet over in the corner, put your hood back on and hide. Guards aren't even allowed down here sometimes. If you're caught you will be locked up too. When the coast is clear I'll call you back out." says Rotor as he starts to look a bit frantic now.

Tails not hesitating for a moment turns and rushes over into the closet and shuts it carefully. He puts his hood back up, but does put his face up to the small barred window of the door to see what he could see out there. It didn't take him long before the door to the dungeon was unlocked again and Lien-Da walked into the area were Rotor was, she carrying a nice sized whip in her hand. She started to head straight over to Rotor who was looking up at her angrily as she made her way over to him, but she wasn't alone.

Behind her came walking slowly a dark black figure, he was wearing a cape that was pinned mainly to his left shoulder, but did span out across his back. He had a shining gold crown on his head and a very familiar scowl on his face. It was Shadow. Tails gasps but keeps his hand over his mouth so he wasn't found out. It was even worse than he thought. It he was discovered by Shadow himself, there was no telling what might happen. Shadow would be nowhere near as merciful as a guard might be if he was found by one of them. He just stays silent. He wanted to hear what Shadow might be doing how here coming to see Rotor at this moment.

"So, are you ready to talk yes, you stupid purple walrus?" asks Shadow and walks directly up to Rotor and grabs him on the neck pretty forcefully and scowling very angrily. "TELL ME WHERE SONIC WENT! I know you know! TELL ME!" he screams at the top of his lungs and shakes Rotor hard slamming him into the wall a few times as he says that.

Rotor grunts and takes all the blows without losing his cool with Shadow practically beating him with how hard he was hitting the wall from his shoves. "Sorry, Sonic never told me where he was going, now why don't you piss off so I don't have to look at your face you tyrant." says Rotor angrily but in the most calm like voice you have ever heard from someone that was in a position like Rotor was in.

Shadow just chuckles and takes a few steps away from Rotor keeping his back to him. "You do know I could easily have you killed, if not for the fact you contain the secrets I would need to gain even more power. And until you tell me them and where Sonic has escaped to, you will remain down here even longer. You do know that right?" asks Shadow turning back to Rotor grinning.

"Yes I know, and I'm prepared to stay down here forever if it means not helping you out. I would never help you and never will help you, so you better stop trying." says Rotor as he spits on the ground some. Shadow not seeming that affected by the small bit of talk Rotor returned to him.

Shadow simply shrugs now and starts to walk towards the door to exit the dungeon. "Well fine then, I will be heading back up to check to see if that stupid squirrel has been reviewing the papers I told her to be reading. But in the mean time, Lien-Da." he says pausing for a moment before simply smiling to her. "Have fun." he tells her.

Lien-Da just giving off the most evilish grin you have ever seen before she cracks her whip to make it stiff in her hands. "Oh with pleasure my lord. I always do." she says waiting for Shadow to leave the dungeon before she turns back to Rotor and walks directly over in front of him. "You never will learn will you? Oh well, more fun for me then!" she says and slams the whip forward into Rotor, he letting out a loud moan when she hits him. The sound of the whip was making Tails cringe as he hears Lien-Da start to beat Rotor with it.

He felt very sorry for Rotor now, but there was nothing he could do to help him through this. He continued to hear crack after crack of the whip and Lien-Da actually laughing as she was whipping him with the whip. "Having fun now! You get one every week and will every week as long as you keep this up!" she says and starts to cackle again as she cracks the whip against Rotor again, his moans ringing out throughout the dungeon with each hit. Tails couldn't watch this part and looks away and just waits for her to finish. He didn't want to watch Rotor get beaten like this.

Lien-Da was whipping him for quite a bit longer than Tails thought she might be doing so, but eventually she does stop. Rotor was breathing pretty hard now and bleeding a bit on one of his arms from the new red line marks on one of them. "Well, hope you had fun then. I'll be bad later to check on you." she tells him before she pretty quickly goes over to the door and leaves the dungeon, her heals heard as clicking the stairs a moment later as she was leaving.

Rotor looks up weakly towards the store room door where Tails was hiding at still. "Come on.. out now.." he says in a much lower voice than before. Tails quickly heads on out of the supply closet and right over to Rotor worried about him after he had been beaten like that for almost no reason than Lien-Da seemed to enjoy doing so.

"Rotor are you ok! You're bleeding!" says Tails putting his hand to one of Rotor's shoulders to check him out. He couldn't believe she would do something like this and seem to find joy out of it. She was cruel, but Shadow seemed to approve of her doing this as well, which scared him even more.

"It's fine… I've had worse. I think that was one of her easy ones. Don't worry about me though. I'll regain my strength later when I get brought a small bit of food to eat. Tails, get out of here and go find Sonic before they do. " says Rotor grunting a bit, because his arms were hurting from the beating, but his chest hurting more, but he wasn't going to tell Tails that, since those scars were hidden under his shirt, along with the many other ones he hides under his shirt.

Tails backs up pretty slowly at first not really wanting to leave Rotor alone like this but does soon walk over to the door and begin to open the door again. "Don't worry, I will find him and find a way to get you out of here soon old friend. I'll be back." says Tails putting his hood and flap back up, after taking them back off after coming out of the closet and leaves the room now. Rotor just letting himself go limp now again to try and rest and fight off the pain.

Tails quickly heads on back through the dungeon and up the stairs back into the hallways. He shuts the door just in time to see two guards turning the corner and heading towards his position. Tails walks casually past them as they go over and stand in front of the door he had just come out of. They were most likely the real new shift guards coming to guard the dungeon. He had just gotten out of there again before being caught coming out.

After making his way back down the hall and on through the main hall again, Tails walks over to the front door and quickly begins to make his way out and back out of castle. The guards at the front door see him leave and wave to him. Tails does give them a wave back, but he was moving rather quickly as he wanted to just get his stuff back now and get out of this city. He couldn't stand to be here any longer. The things he has seen truly disgusted him and he was mad and upset.

When Tails makes it back to his parent's old home, he just walks through the front door and makes his way back into the guest bedroom. He sees the echidna on the floor wiggling around some, he having woken up like he figured he was going to by the time he got back. He didn't have to think twice as he bent down, grabbed the echidna, startling him since the echidna didn't know Tails was back, and slams his head against a wall to knock him back out again. "Sorry, but I will be needing my rope back." says Tails.

He waits until he is satisfied with the echidna being knocked out again before he undoes the ropes from the echidna and soon pulls the rope off himself and throwing it in a wad on the floor. He quickly sticks the rope back into his satchel and begins putting his own gear back on. He was in a hurry, but also just wanted to get out of this city now.

Once Tails had all his gear back on him, he simply leaves the echidna lying there on the floor and leaves the house. Tails heads right for the city gates that he came in earlier. He knew the guard would question him, but he already thought up what to say when he left. He didn't care about all the lying he was doing, he just glad he had gotten in and out without being caught doing this.

When Tails reaches the gate, the guard on the inside now was the guard from outside before, he apparently switching with the one that was on this side while Tails was in the city. "You get your ID sir?" asks the soldier to Tails the moment he saw and recognized him.

"No sir, they told me, since I come from another village that I should go there to get my ID. I would have gotten one, but they said I had to go to that village to get a proper one. I'm sorry. I will be back if you will let me out to go get one?" asks Tails trying to make himself look as innocent as possible so that he could just get out of this city as fast as possible.

"Fine, I think I understand. Guards, open the gate, let this fox go, he needs to go procure some ID and needs to go to another village to do so!" yells out the soldier up the guard that sits in the little guard house at the top of the gate. The guard nods and the gate soon began to open up for Tails. He didn't waist one moment before he begins to walk out the gate.

Tails walks a little bit away from the gate before looking back and seeing the gate be closed not longer after he had left it. Tails just gave a small scowl and kept on walking as he looked back. "I hope that the next time I come to this city, we are here to take it down." says Tails and just keeps on walking this time, no longer looking back.

To Be Continued….


	5. The Return to Angel Island

A Monarch's Corruption  
Chapter 5: The Return to Angel Island

The humming of Tails' plane is all that he could hear was he was flying through the afternoon sky. It might only be the middle of the day, but after what Tails has gone through already today, he needed the rest during the flight. He had only just a few moments ago been inside of a city that has changed for the worse and now he was comfortably resting in his plane on his way towards his next destination.

Tails had set the auto pilot on after flying for awhile once he had found where he wanted to go. He knew where he had to go next, that was Angel Island. Just knowing Sonic was safe for now was what brought him comfort, and Tails knew that he could go look for Sonic later. Right now though, Tails wanted to do what he came originally to do, and that was to find his parents.

After finding that old letter from his father, Tails knew that they should be on Angel Island, but finding it was never an easy task it seemed. Tails has to spend quite awhile searching and prodding through his plane's computer before he tracked where it currently was on its orbit around the planet. It was currently over the center ocean, so it wasn't that far from New Mobotropolis for now at least. It travels the globe and makes one full round trip per month, so it wasn't uncommon for at times it to be nearby and others a very long flight.

Tails checked his computer as he just sat there relaxing. Tails wanted to see how far he had until he reached Angel Island. Tails was just hoping that getting on Angel Island wasn't going to be greatly difficult, like it was getting into New Mobotropolis. He had no clue what the island looked like these days, and had no clue as to if his parents were even still there either. Tails just had to have faith that they were still there, and that he could even get onto the island, since his only option would be to land his plane on it since it is in the sky.

About an hour later, Tails gets a beep from his communicator on his dash board that does startle him awake. Tails had decided that he would take a small nap during his trip, so that he was well rested in case of more trouble when he arrived. Tails reaches forward and grabs his headphones and puts them onto his head. He reaches out then and turns the switch to respond on the radio. He doesn't even have a chance to say anything before someone else talks first.

"This is Angel Island aircraft control. Please state the reason for your arrival. Your craft does not register as a resident of the island. If you do not have a legitimate reason, I would ask you to please turn back." says the voice on the other end.

Tails was rather shocked to hear this. He wasn't shocked really at being asked what he was doing here, but this time he was being asked what his purpose was and not asked to just leave right away. This was a big change over New Mobotropolis, but he wasn't about to complain about that.

"Um, I'm here looking for my parents. I received a letter that they currently reside on this island and I wished to see if it was true. I haven't seen them in a long time, so I wish to be sure." says Tails. He was going to just tell the truth with this person, since they didn't seem to be aggressive. Plus, since his excuse didn't sound like someone who would attack the island he was hoping it would work to allow him access to the island.

"Can you please state their last name so that I may verify it with our citizen database of everyone that lives on the island?" asks the voice on the other end.

"Yes, their last names are the Prowers. I'm their son. As I said, I simply came for a visit." says Tails playing it as innocently as possibly since it seemed to be working so far with this person.

Tails could hear some clicking and typing on the other end as the aircraft controller was searching the database just as he said he would. It didn't happen right away, but he did eventually come back onto the mic after a bit of typing. "I found on record a Mr. and Mrs. Amadeus Prower. Is this your family sir?" asks the controller on the other end.

Tails was very happy to hear him reply with that name. If they were in the database, they were definitely still alive and living on the island. "Yes, that is them. That's my father's name." says Tails smiling quite a lot now that they had verified that for him. He no longer had to worry if coming here was a mistake or not.

"Ah, yes, they do have a son registered here in the database. Mr. Miles "Tails" Prower. Since you gave me a good name of someone in the database and your story sounds legitimate, I will give you temporary clearance to land at the New Echidnaopolis Airport. When you land, we will do a simply retina and finger print scan to verify you are who you say you are. If you check out, we will add you into the system and allow you to be on your way. You have clearance on runway two. A crew will be waiting for you when you land to escort you to testing." says the controller on the other end.

"Yes sir, thank you." says Tails as he cuts the radio at the same time the controller does. He sits back and relaxes even more now as he takes control of the plane himself now as the island was coming into view in the distance. He was a bit uneasy with being tested like they said they would, but he figured they had to do it. No one seemed to know about him sneaking into New Mobotropolis yet, but if they find that guard he knocked out, it might be trouble for him later. He just had to hope that he could get on and off the island before something bad happens.

Tails soon is within full view of Angel Island now and is heading for the spot where the runway is right ahead of him. Though unlike how it used to look, Angel Island looks really developed now. There were buildings everywhere and many of the buildings looked a lot nicer than the ones in New Mobotropolis. This however was only part of how the city looked from the sky. There was the one half of the city that looked a lot nicer, but the other half looked to not be in as good a shape. Even the island's worst part looked pretty good compared to some of the conditions in the capital.

Tails could see the runway just ahead of him and blinking lights along the edges of the runway so that Tails could see exactly where to land. The runway on the island starting and stopping right on the edge of the island, so that planes wouldn't have to be flying over the buildings to try and land. Tails didn't look like he would have any problem landing on this runway though. It would be a much easier landing than the one he had to make in the field earlier that morning.

Tails starts to slow the plane down and lower the landing gear as he comes into approach. He could see also at the end of the runway what looked like an echidna, but he didn't appear to be dark legion since he was actually wearing a uniform that was probably the uniform for airport employees. Tails' plane is getting lower and lower as he soon sees land come under the plane meaning he was no longer over the ocean. It only took a moment then before he felt a bit jerk as the wheels hit the runway and bounce a couple of times before the plane was now rolling down the runway towards the echidna standing at the end of it.

The echidna soon points his flashlights that he was holding off to the right towards a nearby hanger it looked like, that Tails easily turns his plane towards and drives right over inside it. The moment he drives in, the big lights inside cut on and hangar door immediately starts to close behind the plane. Tails slowly brought the plane to a stop now and started to flip several switches as he is powering down the plane. Tails barely had time as the propellers were slowing down before there was a knock on the canopy of his plane that startled him, since he saw no one getting onto the wings of his plane a moment ago.

Tails presses the switch for the canopy to pop up and smiles up at the echidna that was standing on the wing, also in a uniform like the one outside. The echidna was a slightly brown color and had a serious look on his face. "We got the word from the tower. Please exit your vehicle and come with me and I will take you to the scanners." says the echidna who then turns and jumps off of the wings of Tails' plane. He staring back at Tails to make sure he was going to get out and follow first though. Tails, not going to disobey and make any more trouble than he had for himself today, quickly unbuckles himself from his seat and starts to climb out of his plane to follow after the echidna.

Once Tails is out of the plane, he quickly follows after the brown echidna through the door he had entered. The door let back outside and there was a small luggage carrier car there just outside the door with the echidna getting into it. "Come on, sit down and I will drive you to the check up area. Cooperate and we will have no problems, if you do, you will not be happy." says the echidna and does pat his side showing a blaster in a holster at his side as he gets into the car.

Tails definitely wasn't going to argue with someone with a gun, when he is currently unarmed. He did have his backpack and utility belt still on him, but he wasn't going to go for any of the things that could be used as a weapon in there and risk getting into trouble. This echidna didn't seem like he was going to attack Tails like the ones back at the capital would for just any little thing. Tails goes ahead and does what the echidna wanted him to do and sits down into the little luggage car.

The moment Tails sits down into the seat, the echidna hits the gas and jerks Tails back from the sudden acceleration. Tails quickly recovers and watches to see where they were heading to now. As they turn the corner and head out onto the runway, Tails does see a couple of other planes sitting on the sides of the runways. These looking like they are probably more commonly used, thus not locked up in hangers, like private planes. These included only three small passenger planes, which looked to probably hold around thirty people. However, there were also five other planes nearby to them. These looking like military aircraft to transport soldiers, which could easily carry twice as many as the passenger planes. Apparently the airport here doubled as a passenger airline and military airbase.

Tails was surprised this airport was so big for an island this size. It was a rather large island, so it wasn't unheard of for it to have a base on it. Plus, an airbase made much more since anyway, since it basically was the only way on and off the island. There were many hangers on the base, so it is possible for there are even more planes that Tails can't even see around him.

Soon the echidna driving the little car pulls up to a nearby building and just stops without much warning either. This nearly made Tails hit his head on the Dash ahead of him, which would have really stunk with how this day was going. The echidna didn't look too bothered by what he just did and gets right out of the car and walks over towards the door, but does turn to look back at Tails as he walks. "Come on, this is the place, we will go inside, scan you, and if you match who you say you are, you are free to go into the city as you please." he say looking pretty serious about his job.

Tails does look a bit aggravated at this echidna, since he didn't have the courtesy to tell people when he was going to put the brakes on. Tails just gets out and begins to follow the echidna over towards the building. It was a simple one story white building that looked more like an administrative office, than an airport building or terminal. Tails just walks up to the front door with the echidna and follows him on inside the place.

When Tails walks inside, there are a couple of other people working here, they all echidna as well of course. These however look to be more professional than the echidna that just led him in. These all were wearing business suits and more professional looking clothes, while the one that escorted him here was wearing a simple uniform. "Now, go into the room right ahead of you, they are expecting you there." says the brown echidna, and turns and just rushes out of the building, slamming the door as he leaves.

Tails shakes his head as the echidna leaves the room and turns to head into the room he was just told to go into. When Tails opens the door, he is greeted by another brown echidna dressed in business attire. "Good afternoon, come right over to this machine over here and we will begin the scanning of who you are, and then if you check out, you will be put into the system, since we don't have that much on you." says the echidna. Tails nods and quickly agrees to the terms and walks over to a nearby seat that is in front of the machine. He had never seen a machine like this before, but he figured he was about to find out how it worked.

"Now, stick your hand into the little covered area at the bottom and stick your face into this part right here in the front. We will do a finger print scan and retinal scan. Once we verify with the little bit of information that we do have. We will update your profile if you check out and you can be on your way." says the echidna, who sits on the other side of the machine to get ready to turn it on.

Tails does as he is asked and sticks his head against this contraption and sticks his hand into the area he was told to as well and waits. It only takes a moment before the echidna presses a button and the machine kicks on and does a very swift scan across Tails' eyes and his hand to grab his eye and hand prints. Tails immediately pulls his head away when the little light flashes across his eyes, he not expecting it at all. "Oh sorry, I guess I should have warned you about that beforehand." says the echidna immediately apologizing for what happened.

Tails just smiles and shakes his head to show that it was ok. "Eh, I've had worse. I hope that was enough." he says as he sits on back into his seat when the echidna nods and proceeds to turn around and start to type on a nearby computer. Tails wasn't that worried about being caught in anything. He was who he was, and he had no reason to lie to go where he was going, since it was where he was going in the first place.

The echidna sits there at his computer taking the screen shots of finger prints and eye scans to make sure they match with the old records they current have on him. He hadn't updated any of his information here in forever. All of Tails' information was back where he lived in Downunda with Mina. It probably would have been simple to just bring that information with him, but if he was caught, he might have gotten in trouble pretty easily if he was carrying his ID from back home.

It only takes a few moments for the echidna to smile and turn around to Tails nodding. "Alright, this all seems to check out just fine. You are Mr. Prower just as you said you are. Your records match perfectly without a shadow of a doubt." says the echidna, who starts to get out of his chair from behind the machine. Tails starts to get up as well, looking very relieved that they seemed fine with him now, and were even being pretty friendly to him as well.

"Thank you sir, I'm just glad I could get through this without a problem. I've never seen so much security before in a city. Where I live, there isn't as much security." says Tails to the echidna. Tails simply adjusts his satchel and utility belt as he gets up, he looking like he was about to leave now like he was told. But before he can leave now, the echidna does put his hand out to stop Tails from leaving.

"Oh sorry sir, we do have one last thing for you to do if you may? We need you to walk right over here and get your picture taken for a profile picture for our database. That way we can easily identity you next time you come here." says the echidna, pointing to a nearby camera on a stand that was connected to the same computer as well.

"Oh sure, thought something else was wrong." says Tails walking over to small stool on the other side of the camera and sits down onto it. Tails is only there for a moment before the echidna snaps a photo of Tails without once ever saying cheese or to get ready. Tails blinks a couple of times, caught completely off guard by the sudden flash. The echidna did it quickly, so as to get Tails in a casual pose instead of some stiff pose that looked formal.

Tails gets up yet again, looking like he is about to leave, but there was a buzzing sound coming from behind him. He was just going to ignore it but the echidna stops him from leaving yet again. "Oh, here you are Mr. Prower. This is your temporary I.D. That will get you into most places in the city without notice. Just keep this in your satchel there, and there should not be one problem. You may leave out the door to the right of you. Walk down the nearby path and you will come to the exit to the airport." says the echidna, who holds out the little piece of plastic over towards Tails, who quickly takes it and sticks it inside his satchel over his shoulder.

Tails finally gives the echidna a small smile before turning and heading over to the door he was told he could leave out of. When he opens the door and walks outside, he can see the actual terminal nearby, but also the gate to leave the airport and walk into the big city is at. It would only take him a moment to get there, and since people were coming in and out at the same time, he figured he wouldn't be bothered leaving the airport like this. Unlike most of the staff at the airport, most of the normal people coming and going were other species beside the echidna.

Tails walks over and threw the gate that was a metal deter, but it wasn't programmed to go off on the leaving people, since it is figured they already went through some form security beforehand. So there were no checks on people leaving, only those coming back on the other way through. They looked to be pretty determined as well to keep people out that might be a threat to the airport. Tails has no problems and walks quietly threw the gate and onto the first street in New Echidnaopolis.

When Tails starts to walk the streets, one thing is immediately apparent, the Dark Legion guard here isn't as strict as the ones back in the capital. They were standing at the corners of most of the streets, with others doing patrols on small motorcycles through the streets. The Legion here looks more like a normal police force like they did back at Tails' home instead of a dictator's army. The citizens here seem perfectly fine with the guards as well. The citizens here don't appear as poor as the ones back in the capital. There are actually normal business and kids wandering the streets as if nothing was wrong in the world.

Tails starts to smile as he walks the streets here. This place didn't seem that bad of a place to live. It reminded him of back home, just a lot more crowded. Most of the buildings and apartment buildings here were really crammed together in pretty close proximity to each other, most likely to save room for future expansions on the island. It seems a pretty good bit of the normal and upper class people of the kingdom were living here on the island, rather than in the capital. He couldn't tell what the smaller villages are probably like around the country now, but he was hoping it wasn't as bad as the capital.

Tails soon reaches the center of town, where the main garden square is located. Here, there were many people sitting on benches eating their lunches or letting their children run around and play with each other. But right in the center of town, there was one familiar site. There in the middle of a fountain was a massive statue of the goddess Maria. Tails just rolls his eyes as people are on the ground around the statue doing prayer apparently to the goddess and some tossing coins into the fountain around her. Seeing the statue nearby, it only took Tails a moment, before he saw another church of the goddess Maria nearby as one of the buildings that are located adjacent to the square. It was in the perfect location, so that everyone who came to town was likely to see it. Most all of the other buildings around the square are all business' and food places, but the church stayed right there in center straight ahead of the square in full view of them all. Tails felt very comfortable seeing all of this, and he can see why his parents chose to move here instead of staying back at the capital in their old house.

When Tails is about to walk through the square to look for some place to look up information on people, so that he could find his parents address, something caught his eye. A large tv monitor at an electronics store had a large flag come on the screen with Shadow's symbol on it. It was there on the screen for a moment before a red echidna walks onto the screen and stops to face the camera on him. Tails was nearly shocked at what he saw. On the screen was a red echidna wearing a purplish body suit, with a brown vest over it. He was wearing a cowboy hat with stars on it, but his right eye was robotic instead of an actual eye. Tails couldn't believe it, it was Knuckles.

Tails walked right over closer to the window so he could see and hear what he was about to say on the tv. "Hello citizen's of New Echindaopolis. Your enforcer and guardian here reminding you all to behave yourself and listen to the laws that the government set by King Shadow have set. We know you all are good people, but remember, we will not tolerate disobedience. You harden criminals beware, because you know my staff and myself are out there looking for you, to make this land safer for us all. So you all better follow the laws, or else. Remember, the Chaotix are watching you." he says and gives a long hard glare into the camera before he walks off the screen, just leaving Shadow's flag flapping in the wind. The tv then goes back to a regular tv show afterwards. It seemed it was a commercial that the tv networks were required to run from time to time.

Tails was a little bit intimidated by the commercial, but that seemed to be the whole point of the commercial in the first place. Tails glances around quickly around the square, he not noticing them before, but there were pictures on billboards around the square with Knuckles' face on them, saying "The Chaotix are Watching you". Apparently they were pretty serious about crimes here on the island if they have signs all around and tv commercials on tv telling people to keep the peace or else someone would be coming for them.

Tails was glad to see Knuckles was still around here, but apparently he was working with Shadow. Tails wasn't sure why he would be. Knuckles probably had his reasons, but Tails would need to ask Knuckles himself if he wanted to know for certain why. He wasn't sure how he would do that, but for now, he needed to get back to the matter at hand. That is, Tails needed to get back to looking for where his parents were living on this island.

Tails was about to go somewhere else, when he sees in the square a small computer mounted against a poll nearby that says information kiosk. Tails couldn't believe his luck that was just what he needed. Tails quickly runs up to it and presses a button to turn it on so that he could use it. The moment he presses it a voice comes out of the monitor. "Please deposit one mobium to use the information terminal." says the computerized voice. Tails groans and rolls his eyes as he fishes through his utility belt to look for more of the mobiums that Mina gave him before he left home. He only had a few left, but he pulls one of them out and slips it into the coin slot next to the machine, which immediately fires it up.

Tails starts to press buttons on the computer until he finds the area that tells about address locations. He quickly types in his parents' names and lets the computer begin to do a search of the address database in the city. It only took a moment before exactly one match popped up on the screen. Tails immediately smiles and presses another button to make the screen give the address and detailed directions to the house.

When it pops up, Tails looks to see where on the map it was located. He was rather shocked when he saw where they lived. They seemed to be living in the upper division from what the information kiosk was telling him. He didn't think they were really rich, but he would ask them when he gets there. He presses the button on the machine to tell it to print the directions out for him. That's when t he voice goes off again. "Please deposit one mobium to use printing services." says the robotic voice again. Tails rolls his eyes and growls as he goes to get another coin from his belt. He was starting to not like this machine, but it was the only way he could find his parents, so he had little choice.

Once Tails had deposited the mobium into the machine, it immediately prints out a sheet of paper that spelt out the address and direction to get there from his current location. It was almost a mile away, since he was in the commercial district and the upper division was a bit of a walk from here. Tails could have taken the bus there, but he didn't feel like spending what was left of his money. He had only wanted to take a little bit and leave most of it back with Mina to take care of the kids with. So Tails just figures he will walk, it was better for him anyway.

Tails walks out of the square, following the directions in his hand, as he makes his way into what was most likely the edge of the upper division. There were mostly single homes in this section of the city, not apartments like back in the other part of the city. The houses were all pretty nice looking as well. Some a more reasonable size, while there was the occasional mansion around as well. Tails doubted that his parents would be living in a mansion but a normal house he could understand now.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, Tails finally reaches the address and looks up at the house he had arrived at. It was a rather nice looking two story house that was white all over, except for the door and shutters, which were a light tan color. There was also a flag flying outside near the door. It was the symbol of veterans of the past. Shadow apparently hadn't disbanded the use of the flag to show veterancy for furs that have served in the arm forces in the past.

Tails takes a deep breath and walks up the small driveway as he heads for the door. He was a bit nervous since he hadn't seen his parents in quite awhile now. Tails was just happy to see that they were alive after all this time. He walks nervously up to the door and just stands there for a moment. He was ready for this now. He had searched most of the day now for his parents and he was here.

Tails knocks on the door and steps back just a bit for when the door opens up. It takes a few moments before the door is opened up. At the door stood a brown female fox, wearing a long blue dress, a set of pearls around her neck, and a pretty nice ring on her right hand. When she answered the door, she looked very shocked and looked as if she might faint for a moment, but she doesn't. "M.. Miles? Is that you?" she asks looking rather shocked to who she believed to be her son, just much older and more grown up now. Tails smiles right away and nods to her. "Yes Mom, its' Me." he says to her. softly.

It takes a moment, before she is nearly in tears and runs out the door and immediately hugs him, she really glad to see him after such a long away again. "I'm glad to see you Miles. Welcome Home." she says with a very happy smile on her face. Tails just smiles and nods to her, "Glad to finally find Home." says Tails as he starts to head into the house with his mother.

To Be Continued….


	6. A Discovery

A Monarch's Corruption  
Chapter 6: A Discovery

The sunshine of the day shines brightly onto the large, black castle that rests in the center of New Mobotropolis. Now that the day has fully begun, the people of the town are up and about going about their daily duties and chores. There are still a few people that live in the city that own their own shops, and those that do, are doing pretty good with making money. Since there aren't that many stores in the city, those that do have a shop have a pretty good monopoly over what they can sell to the others living there. The downside being that the more money they make the higher taxes that must be paid to the king.

The citizens had little choice but to pay the taxes or either be kicked out of the city or be imprisoned until taxes are paid to the king. Most citizens just got by, living very comfortable was very rare in New Mobotropolis now with Shadow's empire in control. However, The Dark Legion that lived in the city seemed to live very comfortably, especially the higher ranked soldiers that get to live in the castle instead of the soldier's housing area. Most of the soldiers seem to like the way things are going with them and the citizens of the city. This was mostly because their taxes were either very low or nonexistent the high ranked they got in the legion.

This was all very good to the legion since they were winning their war against all freedom, and to unite the entire planet under one kingdom's rule. There were still a few areas where Shadow's domain hadn't stretched too, since some of the people in certain areas are rather hard to overcome, but in time, they all fell one by one most of the time. Time is definitely on Shadow's side, and he is in no super hurry to have things be totally under his control.

Inside the black palace, Shadow is currently sitting on his throne with a small stack of papers next to him, and one piece is in his hand as he is reading it. He had to do this from time to time, and deal with actual governmental issues that needed to be handled in the city and in other cities of his empire. He normally had someone else do this stuff, but that was usually only when he needed things to be approved to give more value to his decisions, so they will be accepted by the people easier.

Shadow is flipping through the pages of the current proposal to add in better housing into the city. At the moment he isn't thinking about passing unless there is a good reason for him to do so, which he can't think of yet, but he isn't finished reading the proposal. Just then, the doors to his throne chamber start to open. Shadow looks up questioningly to see who could possibly be coming to disturb him at the moment, since he usually didn't like visitors while he was working.

The doors to the chamber open up and show that it's Lien-Da, she immediately starting to walk up to Shadow, but she strangely having someone coming in with her that Shadow did not recognize. The person with her looked to be one of her soldiers from how he was dressed. He was a brown echidna, but was dressed in the dark legion clothing. His hood was down at the moment, which not many seemed to do, though the soldier was confronting Shadow and it was a rule that all that were in front of him had to take their hood off while in his presence.

Shadow sits the papers he was reading down for the moment when he sees the two echidnas heading right towards him, there obviously something that needed to be dealt with if they were willing to come and bug him during his work time. Lien-Da and the brown echidna both get down on one knee and immediately bow to Shadow out of respect before looking back up at him. Shadow nods when they both look back up to him. "You two may rise." he says and watches as the two quickly get back to their feet.

"Now I'm sure there is a reason you have come and disturbed me when I told you that I am busy at the moment, so you had better have something important or both of you will be sorry." says Shadow showing how he obviously hated to be disturbed, but he was at least going to hear them out before he gets too mad at the two of them. He figured it must at least be somewhat important if Lien-Da was escorting this soldier of hers into the room personally instead of just another one of Shadow's personal guards that stand outside the throne room doors escorting the brown echidna in.

Lien-Da didn't look nervous from what Shadow just told her, but the brown echidna looked nervous since it was rare for the normal soldiers to get a personal audience with Shadow like this. He trying to look as strong as he could, but he was still a little scared of Shadow, since he's heard of the things Shadow can do to people when he gets mad. The echidna just hoping that wasn't what was going to happen to him when Shadow hears about what they have to tell him.

"Yes sir, we do have some news that needs to be reported to you and its urgent from what I heard a moment ago. That is why I have come to tell you. First off, this here is Corporal Conner. The corporal here is in charge of patrols for the residential area in the southern area of the city." says Lien-Da, telling Shadow all of this in a very professional manner so as to not upset him, since she did after all disturb him during his work, which she usually never does.

Shadow simply nods at first and eyes the brown echidna when Lien-Da tells him the echidna's name and rank, which is something he didn't really care about at the moment. "Alright, but what is this visit about? Come on, one of you two just spit it out, so I can get back to my business before the day is up." says Shadow obviously a bit impatient with the two and wanting this meeting to go a bit faster than how it's going so far.

"Yes sir, we will get right to the point." says Lien-Da and nudges the brown echidna soldier forward in front of her and steps back a few paces. Obviously it was the Corporal that had something to tell Shadow and not Lien-Da, which did make Shadow wonder if this guy had done something wrong, since this what usually happened when a soldier was in trouble with Lien-Da and he needed to be dealt with in some other way.

"Um, sir, it's about what happened to me today while on patrol in my district. I saw a strange fox loitering around an abandoned house and approached him thinking he was up to no good and might be stealing or vandalizing the old house. When I approached him, he informed me that he was not doing anything wrong and had spotted a burglar enter the residence and was stealing things. Since he didn't look to be a threat, I believe him and entered the house to check for myself. Once I entered the house and began my search, I'm guessing the fox that was behind me, must have knocked me out." says the brown echidna nervously. He wasn't sure how Shadow was going to take this part about him being knocked out, since it was embarrassing for someone to be tricked so easily he thought.

Shadow is hearing what this echidna is telling him so far, and at the moment Shadow does not look very pleased at the moment. Shadow is scowling and looking very displeased with the soldier and how he could be so naive and just walk into the building with a strange he does not know still standing behind like that. Shadow wanted to hear the rest first before he jumped down anyone's throat or became even angrier than he already looked at the soldier from just the first part of his story.

"Um, well uhhh, when I woke back up not long later, I found myself tied up in the house, wearing nothing but my boxers. Apparently that fox had stolen my clothes while I was out cold. Yet strangely, not long after I woke up, he returned and knocked me out yet again while I was still tied up. By the time one of the other soldiers found me, I had apparently been out a lot longer that time before I could call for help. The fox was long gone, yet he had left my clothes back with me again. I have no idea what this was about, but he did something with my uniform, but I don't know what." says the echidna looking even more nervous now wondering if something would happen to him or if Shadow was going to get mad at this. From the look on Shadow's face, that would be a pretty safe bet that he was mad over this.

Shadow stands up and starts to make his way over towards the echidna now. Shadow getting out of his throne and coming towards you is never a good thing, and the echidna knows that as his feet are slowly starting to slide in reverse. Shadow just out of nowhere giving this sudden burst of speed and grabs the brown echidna around the neck and lifts him off the ground. Shadow just holds the brown echidna there in the air gasping for breaths. He was getting some, but he was just barely getting them since this was hurting a lot.

Shadow turns his head over towards Lien-Da as he holds the echidna up in the air like this not looking too pleased. "Do you have any other news about this matter to report to me, or do I go about my own investigations to find out what this fox did in this city?" asks Shadow in a very angry sounding tone towards her. This actually startling Lien-Da a little bit when he started to do this to her soldier and then looking angry at her as well.

"Ummm, no sir, I was just informed about this and figured you would want to know about it right away." she says as quickly as she can since she didn't want to leave him waiting for an answer. Shadow does glare at her a little bit before throwing the brown echidna across the room a little bit and onto the floor. He immediately grabbing his neck and gasping for air now that he can get a breath again.

Shadow watches him land, but it then no longer interested in him for the moment. "Lien-Da, take him and see to it that he is stripped of his rank and given lowest rank once again for his patrolling routes. If these are the stupid things that he is going to do, then he doesn't deserve to run the patrolling of a whole section of the city." says Shadow and points to the brown echidna on the floor. "Oh, and give me his I.D. I have some investigating work I need to do and I might need it to check some things I think might be in need of a check." says Shadow giving Lien-Da her orders, who immediately jumps into action and runs over to the soldier to grab his I.D. for Shadow.

The echidna soldier gets to his feet just as Lien-Da gets over to him. She immediately reaching into his pocket and taking his I.D. away from him and simply tosses it over to Shadow. Shadow has no trouble catching the I.D. before he starts to walk towards the door to his throne room, his cape gently swaying up and down as he walks out of the room. Shadow just leaves Lien-Da and the brown echidna in his throne room for the moment while he goes to deal with something.

Shadow quickly walks over to the main door to his castle and beats on the door to make the people on the other side open it up for him, he knowing it was locked at this time of the day still. The door was rarely if ever open for people to come and go so that people who weren't suppose to be in there didn't get in without going through the castle's security squads. It only takes a moment before Shadow hears the clicks of the guards outside unlocking the doors and starting to open both pair of doors at the same time.

Shadow walks out the double palace doors and out into the sunlight. Shadow's black fur immediately begins shining in the sunlight as he looks over at the soldiers that are standing guard here at the door and glaring at both of them looking rather angry still over what he just heard inside. The two guards immediately give Shadow a Dark Legion salute but putting their right fists over their heart and standing at attention to show respect for their ruler. Shadow didn't come out that often, but when he did come out, it usually wasn't that good for the people he was going after or looking for.

Shadow looks at both of them before grabbing the I.D. he was just given and holding it out to both of the guards that were currently on duty. "Did either of you two see this soldier enter the building this morning? I am checking to make sure if he came into the palace or not?" asks Shadow making sure the two soldiers on duty can make out the soldier's I.D. without any problems.

It only takes a moment before one of the guards nod to Shadow. "Oh yes, I let the corporal in this morning?" said the guard confused as to why Shadow was asking about the corporal like this. It seemed weird to both of them as to why Shadow would be looking for one particular soldier, unless he was in trouble. They hoped their fellow soldier was but waited to hear what Shadow had to say now.

Shadow immediately eyes the one guard that tells him that he had let the corporal into the palace this morning and walks right over to him. "Did you ask the corporal to remove his mask before he entered?" asked Shadow figuring that would be the most obvious question he should ask and was the first thing all legion soldiers were suppose to do no matter what. Shadow just waits for his answer now and doesn't still look all that pleased at the moment.

"No sir, the corporal has a very bad cold today and I figured he should keep his visor down so he doesn't spread his germs all around. I'm guessing he went to the doctor to get some medicine, because one he was done, he left really quickly." says the soldier simply shrugging thinking that is what happened. The soldier seems nothing wrong with the situation and just hopes that was all the information that Shadow needed now.

Shadow takes a step closer to the soldier and gives him a much harder look at him to show he was really meaning business now. "You let the corporal into the palace without checking his visor because he had a cold. Is that right soldier?" asks Shadow once more just to clarify what he was just told. Shadow's appearance now was looking more and more serious, like something really important was going on and this information was high class information from the way he was acting. All of this was just confusing the soldier, but he just nods and smiles to show he was being sincere to his king.

Shadow clinches his fist looking rather angry now before just out of nowhere swinging his fist around and decking the soldier right in the side of his face and in one very hard blow, knocks the echidna to the ground and out cold. The other soldier panics at first and backs up to defend himself wondering what was going on and why the king just knocked out one of his own soldiers like that. "Siiir? What's the matter my king?" asks the other echidna soldier standing over by the door, with his legs shaking like mad. He obviously knowing the power that Shadow possesses and doesn't want the same thing to happen to him that just happened to his friend.

Shadow glares over at the other soldier and walks over to him and pushes him into the door rather hard and holds him there very mad now from the look on his face. "Listen you incompetent asshole. Your little friend over there might have just allowed someone that is not supposed to be in the palace inside! He is lucky I didn't kill him right there, which is what I wanted to do in the first place. Now, you go get some guards and have your idiot friend here thrown in the dungeons. He will be down there for a good long time for his incompetent ways." says Shadow shoving the echidna to the side and to the ground as well. Shadow turns and storms back into the castle, slamming the doors when he enters showing how angry he is right now.

Shadow begins to head back towards the throne room angrily, but does see Lien-Da and the brown echidna coming back out of the throne room by now when he was returning. The echidna immediately tries to hide slightly behind Lien-Da, but Shadow stops Lien-Da and makes her move out of the way for a moment so he could talk for just one more moment to the soldier. "Now hold up, I just need one more bit of information out of you before you may go for the moment and resume going back to your lowest of lowest rank now. I need to know whatever description you can give me of the fox that entered the palace now." says Shadow wanting to know if he could get a mental picture in his head for people to search for later.

Connor was skittish at first to answer Shadow, but figuring he might only get hurt again if he withheld any bit of information, he was just going to come right out and tell Shadow what he knew. "Well, all I got was that he was a fox, he was yellowish colored, wore a brown belt with traveling pouches around it, and goggles on his head. Oh, and he was an odd one because he had two tails instead of just one. You know, it looks like he either got into some accident or had some weird kind of birth defect." says the soldier just shrugging not seeing anything else suspicious about the fox that he encountered and then got knocked out by.

Shadow's eyes open as wide as they possibly could when he hears that description and looks even angrier, if he could be angrier. "Very well, you may go. Lien-Da, go into the throne room now." says Shadow trying to keep his cool for the moment while he is in the hall and in front of many other soldiers. From the look on his face though, it would appear that any moment now, he might explode. Lien-Da just nods and hopes that won't be on here, since she knows she can't do anything if he does decide to take anything out on her, or else risk losing her position or even a limb or something worse.

Lien-Da follows Shadow into the throne room and shuts the door behind them. They were in the throne room alone now, just the two of them. Shadow runs up to his throne and sits down before slamming his fist down hard into the arm of his throne, actually shaking its foundation a bit, he hitting it that had. "I can't believe it. After all this time, now Sonic's little fox friend is up and out and actually managed to sneak into my castle undetected? How is it that your guards are that pathetic Lien-Da! HUH! ANSWER ME THAT! I want to know how it is, that these soldiers you have been providing me with can be tricked that easily it sounds like. That fox was able to sneak into the city, steal a uniform, and sneak in here and do who knows what!? God damnit!" yells Shadow sounding absolutely furious now hearing how stupid it sounds many of the soldiers he has guarding his capital are now.

Lien-Da was nearly as mad as Shadow was that her soldiers could do something so stupid and allow someone access in here so easily. She was going to have a word with some of them later, that or a good whipping until they learn to obey orders. She wasn't about to let something like this happen again. "Yes, I'm sorry your highness. It will never happen again. I will be sure and beat it into their heads to not be so lazy anymore when it comes to security. You don't have to worry about them. I will see to all of that personally, believe Me." she says looking serious yet grinning a bit as well.

Shadow just glares at her for a moment but does finally nod. Shadow's fist resting there on the arms of the throne with his fists still clenched in anger. He might be trying to control himself, but if something else bad were to happen, he might do something worse to the next person that gave him any bad news. "Well, unless there is someone else with two tails, that has to be Sonic's little friend Tails that came in here. Since he came alone and would risk so much to get in here secretly, he must be looking for Sonic. Yet, at the same time, this could almost be a blessing to me as well you know?" says Shadow starting to calm a little bit down when he says that and thinks it over for a moment in his head.

Lien-Da stood there silent for a moment trying to get what Shadow was telling her, but eventually it hit her and does grin a bit as well. "Oh I think I get what you are thinking Shadow. You are planning to let the fox find Sonic so you can get your hands back on him once again aren't you?" she inquires since that was the most obvious solution in her mind. Shadow though sometimes did things unexpected, so with him, a simple solution might not be the route he usually takes to solve a problem.

Shadow simply nods this time and taps his hand there on his throne a bit more as he is trying to think up his plan so that it was sure not to fail. "That is the basic plan yes, but it just seems too simple. If we just let the fox find Sonic, we have no way of tracking Sonic, where he goes or what he might be doing once he is found. We will need a way to track him once his location has been found." says Shadow looking deep in thought at the moment. Shadow didn't often do a lot of super heavy thinking, he usually acting on the spur of the moment. This matter however, was very important to him, so he was going to deal with it personally.

"Um sir, if you don't mind me giving my opinion at the moment, I think I might have a suggestion that could be of use?" asks Lien-Da grinning a bit yet again. She wasn't one of Shadow's closest advisors for nothing, so it wasn't that unusual for her to be the one that had the really clever, yet usually sinister ideas for Shadow. Shadow immediately looks interested and motions for her to continue, he wishing to hear what kind of idea she has cocked up this time.

"Well, how about having someone keep an eye on the fox secretly and relaying his position back to us. That way if he does find Sonic, that way we know when to strike and take him into custody. We only need to watch him. No need to get others involved, too much." she says grinning rather sinister looking and chuckles a bit when she reveals her plans.

Shadow immediately grins and chuckles a bit too. "Hmmm, I think you might be right on this one. If we go out looking with massive groups of troops, the fox is sure to pick up on what we are doing. He is rather intelligent from what I've seen. It would be better for us to keep a low profile for now. That is perfect for this. Lien-Da, I want you to go get in contact with one of our special agents and send them to keep an eye on the fox. He could be anywhere in the kingdom, but I think I might have a few ideas to where you might want to have the agent check first for him." says Shadow apparently on board with this plan from how it sounds.

"Oh? Do tell Shadow? Any little clue will be very helpful for our agent in tracking him down. If he can get into the city that easily, he obviously is rather good at hiding his true identity. I'll do a little research of my own, but the agent should have an easy enough time. I'm sure the fox has made a mistake somewhere and believe me, I will find that mistake." she says grinning as she looks like she is ready to pounce on this mission as soon as possible. Lien-Da loves her job and any chance she has to use more of her power, the better in her opinion.

"Good, go contact the agent, but tell them that they might want to at least check out Angel Island first. A lot of the foxes other friends are known to still be around there, and if he has come all the way out here, he is bound to get into contact with at least one of them. We will find him. Now go ahead and get on the mission this moment." says Shadow raising his hand and basically shooing Lien-Da away, he wanting her go get onto it this instant and not just stand around talking with him anymore about the plan.

Lien-Da bows and grins as she starts to leave. "Yes sir, I am on my way." she calls out as she rushes over to the large throne room doors and quickly leaves Shadow on his own in his throne room. Shadow just sat there for a moment to catch his breath on all that had just happened before he stood up and starts to make his way towards a door not that far from where his throne sat in the room.

Shadow walks over to the door and turns it, it leading into a small stairwell that Shadow slowly makes his way up. This being his private passageway to the second floor that led to his private quarters. No one else was allowed to come this way unless they had his permission. The second floor was all personal living quarters or guest rooms for the few guests that he does get here in the palace. There were guards on the second floor, but they are usually higher ranked and very few in numbers.

Shadow reaches the top of the stairs and exits the door at the top leading to the main hallway on the second floor. Shadow only has to take a few steps down the hall to get to his own quarters the closest room to the stairwell. This was done on purpose, so that Shadow could get to and from his room to the throne quickly, but also for a quick escape route, that is, if it was ever needed, which was doubtful.

Shadow walks over to the door and opens it to enter his personal quarters. When he walks in however, he looks up to see Sally over in one corner of the room putting away what looked to be a cloak into one of her person drawers. This catching her by surprised as she quickly puts it inside and shuts the drawer looking nervous that Shadow had just walked into the room like this. Shadow scowls a bit and starts to walk over towards her, after shutting the door and locking it.

Sally starts to take a few steps backwards before falling onto the black seated bed in the center of the room and looking up nervously at Shadow once he gets over towards her. "Just be lucky you are good at getting in and out of this palace without me finding out. I've caught you before leaving without me at your side. I have no clue what you are doing, but if I find out, you can believe me, I doubt it will be that pleasant." says Shadow glaring down at her for a moment before turning and walking over to the dresser to have a look for himself.

Sally just nods to Shadow and knows what he was going to find and knows he probably won't enjoy it that much. She had been doing this for a good while now, and knows he doesn't like it, but she feels it had to be done. She had a duty to fulfill and she would always rather risk her person safety than give up on her responsibilities.

Shadow grabs the drawer and opens it up and finds the cloak inside and pulls it out. Shadow tilts his head slightly at first trying to figure out what it was, but does sorta get the idea after a moment. "So you are the cloaked figure that has been seen around town giving out coins to the people right?" asks Shadow figuring she must be giving them those coins from his personal treasury. Shadow didn't look very pleased, but that was still partially from the news about Tails and not about this. This was rather minor to him and just a small thing to tick him off. This not the first time he's caught her doing something similar in the past.

Sally has leaned in time that lying would only get her hit most likely, so she figures it best not to and simply nods to Shadow when he asks her that. "Yes, it was me." she says sighing a little bit wondering what he was going to do next knowing that she was out helping the people like that again. Sally just couldn't help herself. It was just the kind of person she was and in her nature to help people out in need.

Shadow takes the cloak out and throws it over onto the bed and stares down over at her when he throws it over there. "Burn it. I don't want to catch you going out like that again alright. Once I am done with my next mission I'll give your people another small improvement in living if that will make you stop stealing from my dang treasury for goodness sake." says Shadow grumbling as he turns and starts to head over to the balcony door so that he could stand outside and get some air.

Sally looks rather confused, because Shadow didn't do anything but say to burn the cloak and no go out like that again, which rather confused her. The last time she was caught, Shadow flipped his lid, but this time he didn't? "He must have something big on his mind if he is not going to over react this time." she says mostly to herself as she sees him shut the door and go sit out onto a chair near the balcony.

Whatever was on Shadow's mind right now was of more importance than Sally going out and helping the citizens of the city have a better life in any way that she could. She wasn't going to complain since if she wasn't going to be punished, she was just going to listen to Shadow's wishes this time and not go out for at least a little while. "I better not disturb him or I might get into more trouble. Whatever is going on, it can't be good for whoever it is, he is thinking about." says Sally as she grabs up her cloak and goes into the bathroom nearby, where she secretly stashes it under the sink where Shadow never looks. No way was she going to burn the cloak. Shadow had told her to burn it before, and she hid it from him each time. One time he did burn it himself, but getting another one wasn't that difficult in this city.

Shadow really had no concern with Sally's little annoyances she is always making for him. He had only married her to settle down the citizens of his nation, so that they would think they were getting a better side leader in their eyes. He listened to her only very rarely, and most of the time didn't care for her that much. This was really nothing more than a political strategy to keep the citizens happy to him.

Shadow just looks up into the sky for the moment and shuts his eyes as he tries to rest for a little bit. Shadow had a lot on his mind at the moment and he needed to make sure he understood everything that had happened already today, that way when the big things go down, he will be ready for them. No matter what happens, he was going to be ready to deal with them personally if he had to. Every last little thing was going to be dealt with in this situation in his head. When Shadow finally got what he was looking for back, he was going to put it to an end to it, once and for all.

To Be Continued….


	7. A Reunion?

A Monarch's Corruption

Chapter 7: A Reunion?

Tails couldn't help but have a huge smile on his face as he sat on the couch in his parent's new home. It had been a wonderful reunion and Tails was just as happy to see his parents as Tails' parents had been to see him on their doorstep. Tails hadn't been so happy in the longest time, not since his own children had come into this world.

Tails now sat there on the couch sipping a cup of tea as his mother Rosemary walks into the room with a tray of cookies she had just freshly baked. She walks over to the coffee table in front of Tails and sits them onto the table in front of him. "Here you go dear, try some of these." she says then sitting down next to Tails and giving his head a small pet. Tails immediately gives a small purr to the rubbing and nods reaching forward to take one of the cookies she had made just for him. Tails might be an adult now, but he still loves the attention he gets from his parents, mainly because they had not been in his life for so much of his life.

As Tails started to bite into the cookie, his father Amadeus makes his way back into the room and takes a seat into his usual recliner. Amadeus turns the chair to face Tails and his wife and can't help but give a smile. "It's still great to see you son, and I'm still impressed that you managed to find us after being gone for so long." says Amadeus giving a rather proud smile after he made that statement.

Tails couldn't help but smile and nod to his father as he took another bite of the cookies his mother made for him. "You wouldn't believe all the things I have been through this morning, this is definitely the highlight of my day." says Tails leaning back against the soft cushions of the couch looking so happy and relaxed to be in a comfortable home, rather than back in New Mobotropolis where things looked so horrible.

Amadeus does look to his son curiously when he mentions he wouldn't believe what he has been through today. This does however spark the old general's curiosity, "And what have you been through this morning son? I hope you didn't do something too reckless?" asks Amadeus hoping he was wrong, but knowing Tails and how he was practically raised by Sonic and his friends, he wouldn't put it past his son in the least.

Tails does look a bit worried when his father asks him to tell him what he had been through this morning. Tails was rather worried his parents would scold him for doing what he did, but Tails figured he had to do it. "Well, I uh, went to New Mobotropolis thinking you both were still there. I did have to fake who I was to get in, but it was only to see you two. That's when I found your really old letter that told me you two had managed to move out of the city and move here with the others." says Tails quietly leaving out the part about his little raid into the castle.

Amadeus hearing this part just smiles and even chuckles a bit hearing the short story his son gave to him, he actually finding it rather amusing. "Well, I see some of the skills I taught you in the little time we had together before this fiasco happened came in handy then if you were able to get in and out of the hell hole so easily. It figures that Shadow's soldiers are not that bright around there. Shadow barely gives them any guidance, other than to collect taxes and make sure people follow the most obvious of laws" says Amadeus obviously getting quite a bit of amusement from what his son just said.

Tails chuckles as well and nods to his father glad that he seemed to not mind him sneaking into the old city to try and find them. Tails definitely was going to leave out the part about sneaking into the castle, at least for now, because he didn't want his parents to overly worry about him. But Tails did have other things on his mind right now. "Um, dad, could you explain what's going on here on the island? Things look to have changed big time since I was last here." asks Tails looking as casual as he possibly could now.

Amadeus nods as he leans forward in his chair to adjust his position to be able to look at Tails easier now. "Yes, things have definitely changed a lot around here. You have been away for so long, so of course this would be quite the site for you. Shadow gave this island a bit more dependency than he does with other places mainly because of the good tax revenue he gets from this island. He even has his own secondary palace here on the island as well. Knuckles however still has a strong presence on the island, so Shadow just lets him go about his business as long as the taxes and Shadow's law is upheld here." says Amadeus reaching forward now onto the table and picking up a small pipe that was resting in front of him.

"I see, so that is what is going on here. I was wondering why the legion here was so much more lenient than the ones back in New Mobotropolis. The soldiers here look more like a police force than a soldier occupation like they back in the capital." says Tails stating the observation he had made upon his arrival here on the Floating Island. Even a kid would most likely say the soldiers in the city weren't as scary as the ones back in the capital. Tails had even seen one or two even giving directions to some of the citizens when he was making his way to the city square.

"Yes, most of the soldiers here are under Knuckles' command and thus they are not as harsh as the ones down on the mainland. That is why the city here is so nice and well maintained, because Knuckles actually keeps a good bit of his funds in the city, so it can function properly. He is the guardian, so he protects his people as best he can. But with Shadow's constantly visits, or sending one of his henchmen to come do checkups on Knuckles, it seems Shadow might have been planning something." says Amadeus starting to light the pipe now between his speech to his son.

"Why do you think he might be planning something?" asks Tails curiously. Tails new his father, being an old acorn kingdom general, probably had a keen eye for small things that Tails himself might even miss. Tails still had to ask, since his father had been on the island for a long time now, and this is the first time Tails has been here since it became like it currently is.

"Well, recently Shadow has raised the taxes for the more wealthy citizens and added just a bit more onto the consumer goods tax. Most people won't notice that one, since it wasn't much, but the tax on the rich was rather noticeable. Shadow seems to be gathering money as if he is in need of funding for something. Who knows with Shadow, he might have something planned, it might just be greed. This is all simply speculation on my part." says Amadeus taking a puff from his pipe, though makes sure to face away from the other two as he puffs the smoke out.

Tails scratches his head some as he starts to think that over. Shadow hadn't seemed like he was planning anything big back when he was inside the castle, but if Shadow was up to something, he obviously wouldn't keep it out in the open where someone could see it. Shadow was smarter than that. Tails shakes off the thoughts before taking another bite of a cookie, finishing that one off. "Well, whatever Shadow might be planning, it is not good. But I do have other news and now hearing what I heard from you dad, I think I should have a talk with Knuckles right away." says Tails looking a bit more serious than he had before.

"Oh? And what news have you that you need to go see Knuckles son?" asks Amadeus tilting his head some when his son says that. Amadeus didn't hear that much good news all that often, especially from his son like this, but because Tails seemed so eager about his news, Amadeus now really wanted to know what was on the other foxes' mind.

"Well um, when I was in New Mobotropolis, I heard from a source, I doubt I was supposed to know about, that Sonic has escaped custody not too long ago and is actually running free somewhere down on the mainland. I figured Knuckles might want to know about it and maybe help find Sonic if possible" says Tails smiling a bit as he says this. Amadeus and Rosemary both pause hearing that from their son and look up at each other shocked and then back over to Tails afterwards.

"Son are you sure about that? Sonic has been locked up for years, and you are saying just now he has finally escaped and is running loose somewhere now no longer under Shadow's custody?" asks Amadeus looking rather anxious to know the answer to that question. No one had heard news about Sonic in the longest time and many wondered if he was still alive after what they saw happen to him by Shadow on the day this all first occurred. If this was true and Sonic was still alive, it was pretty much a miracle that he had lasted as long as he has.

"I'm sure of it. The guards said that Shadow has been up in arms trying to find Sonic again, so that might be what Shadow is gathering money for here. Shadow might be putting money into finding Sonic, because he is worried what might happen, if he doesn't keep Sonic away from the rest of the public." says Tails grinning a bit looking like he is very confident in his answer, so as to convince his parents that he is telling the truth and is confident about his answer.

Amadeus and Rosemary do look to be considering what their son had been telling them for a moment before finally smiling and nodding to Tails. "I believe you son. If what you say is true, I'm sure Knuckles would like to know about it. Shadow may have already told him and Knuckles may be on Shadow's side, but I would say with your history with Knuckles I think he might want to know if he doesn't already know." says Amadeus now taking another puff of his pipe.

"I know coming and visiting you two was my primary reason for coming here, but I feel I have a responsibility to do what is needed to help Sonic. If Sonic is out there still alive and free, I want to do all I can to track Sonic down and find him. I might have a few ideas as to where he might go into hiding at, but I doubt anyone else would, unless they knew him as well as I do." says Tails not wanting to give away what he knew already. Tails already knew where Sonic most likely was hiding out, but Tails didn't want to tell his parents and have it used against him or something bad like that.

Amadeus had a clue as to where this conversation was going and finally smiles and waves his hand to his son. "Go ahead son, I'm glad that you came by here to visit with your parents first, but I can tell you have something else on your mind now after hearing that bit of information you overheard. I don't want to keep you here when there are other people that need you." says Amadeus puffing out another puff of smoke, but at the same time looking very serious in that he wanted his son to go get the job done that he needed to get done.

Rosemary nods as well and pats her son on the head once again making him purr the moment she does so to him. Tails finally grins and nods over to his father starting to get to his feet. "Alright, I guess I better get going to give this information then. Don't worry, I will be back as soon as possible. I came here for an extended visit with you guys and now that I know where you both are living at, I can make that possible as soon as I have the time." says Tails reaching next to him on the couch and starting to reattach his utility belt and his throw his satchel over his shoulder again.

"Just be careful son. If things start to get too troubling for you, don't stick around and make things worse. Know when to push forward and when to pull back in what you are doing." says Amadeus as he begins to stand as well when Tails stands. Rosemary stands as well and reaches over to give Tails a hug. Tails gladly accepts the hug from her before turning to face his father again.

"Don't worry, I will." says Tails nodding as the two foxes reach out and shake each other's hands before Tails turns and bolts towards the door now. Tails does stop for a moment to give his parents a small salute to the both of them before rushing out the door quickly to be on his way.

"You sure he is going to be ok dear?" asks Rosemary looking over towards her husband with a bit of concern for what might be going to happen with Tails running around as he seems to be doing at the moment. Amadeus just grins as he sits back down into his chair to take another puff from his pipe.

"Don't worry, he has my blood in his veins. He knows how to take care of himself now. We just have to learn to trust him. Tails will get what needs to be done with flying colors. We just need to sit back and let him do what needs to be done." says Amadeus smiling over to his wife standing next to the couch. Rosemary couldn't help but worry, but trusted what her husband says and goes over to the window to watch Tails making his way in the direction of Knuckles' home command center.

……………………….

Tails made his way through the rest of the residential neighborhood before returning back to the business district from before. Tails knew exactly where he had to go now. Tails needed to make his way to Knuckles home and command center so that he could have a quick visit with the guardian while the information on Tails' mind is still fresh.

Tails this time didn't need to head for that stingy information machine again. Finding Knuckles' home was rather easy, seeing as just about every citizen in town new where it was. It was pretty hard to miss, it being one of the larger buildings on the island, next to the large church in the main square.

Tails makes his way up a road that is near the church and starts to walk down this road towards the large mansion looking place that is not that far from it. Up ahead was a very nice looking mansion that had several dark legion guards standing in front of it, but also there are several people taking pictures of the home as well, since this just happened to the time a tour group was driving by the home. Tails did have to wait a moment for the people to move along before he could start up the stairs and approach the guards that do notice Tails the moment he starts up the stairs.

The two dark legion guards immediately pull their hoods down, to show they are indeed more echidna and do hold out their hand to Tails when he approaches them. "I.D. sir, no one is allowed entrance into this complex unless they have permission to do so." says one of the guards who then holds out his hand waiting for Tails to produce an I.D.

If this had been some other place, Tails might have just turned and walked away, but figuring this was Knuckles place and can sort of understand while he would at least need some guards to stand out front of the house. Tails reaches into his fanny pack and quickly produces the I.D. he was given back at the airport when he arrived here. "Here you go. I wished to see Knuckles if possible. We are old friends and I wanted to have a visit with him." says Tails playing innocent yet again, though after the small talk with his parents, Tails didn't really need to play innocent with these guys it seemed.

The slightly purplish echidna takes Tails' I.D. and begins to pull out a radio that is at his waist, the other side of his waist band holding his blasting pistol that all legion guards carry with them. "Sir, this is Vince out front, we have a citizen here that says he is an old friend of yours and wishes entry into the residence." says the echidna over his portable radio.

It took a moment before a response finally came over the radio. "This had better be good. I was in the middle of my lunch. Who is it that is here." says the very familiar voice of Knuckles over the receiver now. Tails just smiles hearing Knuckles voice and the same old grouchiness of when he is disturbed when he is doing something.

"Uh yes, the I.D. he presented says that his name is Miles Prower?" says the guard over the radio once again as he waits for a response. The echidna do look up noticing that Tails just stood there smiling not seeming to be much a threat from how he looked, but they still wanted to make sure he was allowed access to the home, since access was greatly restricted for security purposes in these times.

There was quite a bit of silence and the guard was about to ask again to tell the name of the citizen I front of him. "Let him pass. He is a friend of mine. Open the front doors and let him inside." says Knuckles over the radio finally after a moment of silence. The guards are a little shocked since most people that claimed to be friends of Knuckles were false accusations, but this one was being granted access it seemed.

"Sorry sir, we didn't know. Here is your I.D. You may enter the home." says Vince handing Tails back his temporary I.D. and stands to the side to allow Tails to pass. Tails simply nods and smiles politely to the echidnas that stand guard, before walking over and starts to pull open the doors to enter into the large home that was supposed to be where Knuckles lived, and from the sound of it, he did live here.

Tails opens the door and makes his way into the mansion to get his first look around the place before getting a rather big shock at how nice this place looked. It was pretty much spotless and showed plenty of signs of wealth all around the place. Tails hadn't been in a place this nice in a long time. He lived in a simply large apartment with his family, and Knuckles here is living in a glorious mansion, that also sounded like it doubled as his headquarters as well.

Tails looks around the main foyer of the mansion seeing so many doors around this place and not having a clue as to where to go, just waits now for someone to come and find him here. Tails didn't have to wait long before a door opened up at the top of the stairway in the middle of the room and at the top of the stairs, stood the red echidna, wearing a black body suit that covered his whole body, a cowboy hat, and also the bionic right eye that were staring right at Tails. Tails couldn't help but stair back at the echidna with a strong silence in the room. Knuckles finally smiles and starts to walk down the stairs towards Tails. "Well, I hoping this time a person who said he was an old friend was legit, and this time I see that it actually is an old friend. You would be surprised at the people that try and sneak into this house." says Knuckles chuckling as he makes his way down the stairs towards the fox.

"Hey, I can understand man. I'm just glad to see that my friends are still around during all this mess. I'm lucky I even got here. It was such a long plane ride up here." says Tails walking forward and begins to shake Knuckles' hand when the two of them get next to each other. Knuckles then pats Tails on the shoulder and then starts to usher Tails to follow him on back up the stairs.

"Come on, we can go back up to the living chambers upstairs and catch up." says Knuckles starting to head up the stairs ahead of Tails. Tails does quickly nod and walk up the steps just behind Knuckles as the two of them head on up towards the door Knuckles originally came out of. Yet at the same time as Knuckles and Tails are heading threw the door, neither notice that someone nearby on another rail upstairs was watching the two of them enter the room.

Knuckles and Tails enter the door into a rather lovely living room area that still has Tails marveling at what all Knuckles seems to have gained from being Guardian and living in the city now. "My goodness Knuckles, you apparently haven't been doing all that bad if you get to live in a place like this." says Tails as he goes over and sits on a nearby couch, while Knuckles sits on the couch across from the one Tails sits on. There was a coffee table between them, so it wasn't like the two of them are right next to each other.

Knuckle simply chuckles as he hears Tails comment about his home. He could believe that Tails would be impressed with a house like this, when comparing it to what Knuckles figured Tails was accustomed to. "Yeah, well being the Guardian on this island pretty much makes you royalty here. When Shadow took over and I moved here to keep this island in check, I pretty much got treated like the islands' king for all the thing I do to keep the peace around here." says Knuckles kicking a leg up and crossing it across his other leg. Yet, at the same time this is happening, the door they had entered into was cracked slightly still as someone was peeking in at them both.

"Ah so that's what's with this place. I was starting to wonder how you could afford all of this when you used to live out in the countryside when we first met way back then." says Tails chuckling when he says this, kidding with Knuckles trying to show he still considers him a friend. Knuckles might have in old times not thought that very funny but at the moment he seemed to be in a good mood and chuckles some back to Tails comment. Tails is very glad to see Knuckles apparently was in a good mood at the moment.

"Yeah well, I had to protect my people. If I had not, this island would be in the same amount of despair as the rest of the planet seems to be. My race has been making a great comeback in numbers, so I think I have been doing a good job." says Knuckles smiling and leaning back into his couch looking rather proud of himself for helping his island survive the chaos that has been befalling the rest of the planet under Shadow's rule. Knuckles of course didn't like going by Shadow's laws, but he figured it was better than having his people suffer anymore than they already had in the past with Robotnik.

"You have certainly done a good job around here, that's for sure. Back in Downunda, things aren't as good as they are here, but the Echidna's that are there are actually very nice too. The ones I met this morning in the capital, not so much." says Tails looking down a little bit when he gets to that part. The moment Tails mentions the capital and this morning, this did get Knuckles' attention to hear that Tails had been near where Shadow operates. Knuckles hadn't even been to the capital in a long time, since he had no need to go there and see the people suffer under Shadow's rule.

Knuckles had a natural curiosity for things of this matter and had to know why Tails had gone there. "You were in the capital? I'm surprised you made it in and out of that place without being shot or thrown in Shadow's dungeons. What in the world were you doing there?" asks Knuckles now looking very eager to hear what Tails had to say, but also wondering if this was why Tails was visiting him now.

"Yes, I managed to make my way in, actually looking for my parents. I had no idea they had moved here, so when I got in, I headed to their old house and found an old letter telling me they had moved here. I came here looking for them as well and did find them. I just got back from their house, but that was only one of the reasons I came to the island to talk with you Knuckles. There is something else I must ask you about." says tails now starting to get to the point of his visit here with his old friend. Tails hadn't wanted to just come right out and tell Knuckles right away why he was here, but when this topic came up, this seemed like it might be the right time to do so.

"Oh? You have something else you wanted to speak to me about other than me gladly taking in your parents and many of the others as citizens of the island here?" asks Knuckles wondering what it was that Tails was so curious to ask of him. Knuckles had indeed sort of bribed Shadow to allow most of the old crew to move to the island for better lives, but it did cost Knuckles quite a bit to allow such a thing to happen. Knuckles figured it w as better for them to live here, rather than suffer back in the capital where they all used to live.

Tails nods and starts to look more serious once Knuckles became curious of his visit as well. The door opening just a bit more as well, for whoever was there to listen better and see what was going on in the room. "Yeah, I uh, was wondering if you knew anything about what has become of Sonic?" asks Tails now looking a bit nervous, because he didn't want to alert Knuckles by just saying he knows Sonic is free at the moment. He wanted to check to see if Knuckles knew or not, before blabbing what he knew, to who he figures is still his friend. It sure sounds like Knuckles is still a friend of Tails, but Tails just had to be sure.

"Oh, I should have known that's one of the reasons you might eventually show up, since you two were pretty much brothers to each other. I wish I could give you better news, but he is still in prison in the capital under Shadow's castle. Shadow rarely ever let's Sonic out of that place, since Sonic could easily get away if given the right opportunity, so I wouldn't hold high hopes of getting to see him while you are here on your visit." says Knuckles sighing a bit now. He really wished he could have given better news to Tails, but that was really the only news Knuckles could give to his old friend now.

Tails immediately grins upon hearing Knuckles say that Sonic was still in prison. Apparently, Shadow had kept his escape a secret from everyone, so as to not cause alarm, so that Shadow could catch Sonic himself most likely. Tails then holds up his hand to Knuckles right after he finishes speaking about Sonic being locked up. "Just as I thought, you believe Sonic is still in prison, when I recently learned upon my visit to the capital, that Sonic is very much no longer in lock up and out roaming free at the moment, on the run from Shadow's troops." says Tails now springing what he knew onto Knuckles to see how Knuckles would take this bit of news.

Knuckles didn't say a word and just stared right at Tails for a moment now as silent as he could be. He couldn't believe what Tails had just said, but this was now serious business if what Tails said was true. "Um, come again? You said Sonic is on the run and Shadow is currently trying to track him down? That is why you are here? But how could that be? Shadow would have told me if Sonic had escaped and most likely had me and my troops track down Sonic as well." says Knuckles trying to believe what Tails had just told him, but there were so many holes in what Tails just said at the moment that Knuckles had a hard time believing him. Knuckles now looked to be demanding from Tails how this could be possible from the looks on his face, that did worry Tails a little bit, but figures Knuckles is just eager to know how this could be.

"I was shocked myself at first, but I guess I better tell you how I found out this little bit of information if it will be safe with you. I just want to be sure is all." says Tails a little worried that Knuckles might arrest him for what he was going to tell him. Tails figures though he has to trust someone and Knuckles was the most likely one he could think of to tell this secret too. Knuckles was also the one that was most likely to help him he figured at least.

Knuckles does look at Tails a bit curious when he asks if this secret would be safe with him, before Knuckles finally just nods to Tails and lets him speak. "Go ahead, I won't do anything Tails. Just tell me how you know this information and how you came about it?" asks Knuckles wanting Tails to just get to the point instead of beating around the bush like he seemed to be at the moment. Knuckles always preferred people to get right to the point or he started to get very impatient if they won't just hurry up with what he wanted to know.

"Alright, here is how it goes. When I was in the capital, not only did I find the letter about my parents, but I just had to go into the castle and see if Sonic was in fact still in there. I stole a legion outfit and managed to sneak into the palace. I don't know how I managed to do it, but I actually got away with it. I made my way through the castle and on down to the dungeon where I ran into Rotor. Rotor told me that Sonic had managed to sneak out not long ago, and has been in hiding ever since. I have a pretty good idea where Sonic might be hiding, but I'm not totally sure. I was hoping that you would help me in tracking down Sonic, so that he may help us all in dealing with the problems of the world. You know what those are yes. So Knuckles, can you please help me in finding Sonic? I want to fix things. I have been too accepting of how things are for too long now. Things need to change and I'm sure you would agree." says Tails looking as serious as he could possibly be. Tails just had to get his point across to Knuckles that he was serious and that they needed Sonic's help for there to ever be a change around here.

Knuckles sat there quiet during all this, but with how his mouth was slightly agape, it was obvious that Knuckles was stunned to hear what Tails had gone through to get this bit of information. Knuckles eventually sighs and gets up walking to a nearby window and looks outside. Knuckles appeared to be thinking about what Tails has said. Tails gets up as well hoping that Knuckles was going to help him, since Sonic was a friend of them both.

Knuckles eventually turns his head back to Tails and was about speak when suddenly the door opens up nearby and a pink female echidna comes into the room tugging a red female echidna with pink hair into the room so suddenly that is startled both Tails and Knuckles, who both look up immediately afterwards when the two come walking into the room. "Well, look here who I found out there being a little snoop again huh?" says Julie-Su walking over and sitting the other echidna down onto the couch where Tails had been sitting, and she immediately crossing her arms in disgust at being caught.

"Oh Julie, I'm glad to see your still around, though who is this?" asks Tails as Knuckles walks over right next to Tails and immediately crosses his arms as well, upon hearing what her just heard. The other female on the couch seeing Knuckles looking down at her like that immediately gives him a nervous smile and small wave up at him when she sees that look on his face.

"Well young lady? You've got some real explaining to do with you being caught snooping in on dad's private conversations yet again. You might be a future Guardian, but you should know better than to listen into things that are not your business." says Knuckles giving a small glare down towards his daughter Lara-Su. The younger female echidna looking very nervous still, since there was no telling what he might do for catching her doing this yet again, this not being the first time she has snooped and gotten caught.

Tails hearing this obviously figures this was Knuckles' daughter that he had read about long ago. He just had never met her, but now he gets to meet her apparently when she sounds like she is about to get in trouble. "Ummm, yeah I uh just wanted to see who was visiting us dad. I uh wasn't wanting to eaves drop." says Lara trying to act as innocently as she possibly could with her dad and mother both standing here staring her down.

Tails does smile a bit knowing these two must be going through a time having to deal with a teenager. Tails was just glad his kids were still young and not at this age yet. He doubted he was ready for teenagers, since he knows how he acted when he was a teen and that sort of scared him thinking of having to deal with that himself one day. He just hoped his kids were better behaved than he was. However, Tails just stays quiet not wanting to get in the middle of a family affair at the moment.

"Yeah, I'm sure. We have had this talk about you listening into my conversations with my associates. If we catch you doing this one more time, you won't like the consequences. Dear could take Lara here back to her room and make sure she stays there until our visitor leaves?" asks Knuckles to Julie. She nodding as she reaches down grabbing Lara by the arm and stands her back up and does start to drag her back over towards the door.

Julie was about to leave when she finally does notice who Knuckles is visiting with and can't leave without saying a word or two. "Glad to see you Tails, but I'm sorry this had to happen. Next time your around you should bring Mina by and we can all catch up. I'm sorry to rush out, but I have to deal with a snooping little girl." says Julie dragging Lara out of the room at a rather fast pace. Lara doesn't look too happy to be dragged out of the room in front of company in this manner.

Tails finally turns back as Knuckles sighs and puts his hand up to his head in embarrassment. "Sorry you had to see that. Lara is going to be the death of me one day with the trouble she is constantly getting into. She is a good girl, but her getting into mischief all the time drives me nuts. At least she is good at her school studies and Guardian studies." says Knuckles shaking his head as he goes and sits back onto the couch now.

Tails chuckles a bit before sitting down next to Knuckles and reaching into his pouch at the same time. "Don't worry about it man. I have kids too, so I know the feeling. Mine may not be her age yet, but I can understand how kids can run you ragged. To believe I used to run all over the place at their age is amazing still yes, but I couldn't imagine them doing the same as I did at their age. Tails then holds over what he had pulled out for Knuckles to see, he had pulled out a picture of his family for Knuckles to see. "The girl is little Melody and the new boy is Skye." says Tails showing the picture to Knuckles. Tails just couldn't resist the urge to show his own kids off to Knuckles after getting introduced to Knuckles' kid in that manner.

Knuckles does take a look at the picture and just smiles seeing Tails, Mina and the kids in the picture. They were still rather young, but they would grow quickly most likely. "Well, I'm glad you are happy with your family, but Tails there is something I must tell you. It is what I was going to say before we were interrupted back there by all that." says Knuckles starting to sigh again as Tails took the picture back to put into his wallet in his pouch.

Tails wonders what could possibly be up with Knuckles now, but just waits for what Knuckles had to say now. When Knuckles doesn't respond right away Tails tries to get Knuckles to tell him. "What is it Knuckles? What were you going to say to me?" asks Tails curious and eager to hear what it was he wanted to say.

Knuckles looks up once more before shaking his head to Tails, "I'm sorry Tails, as much as I would like to help you out in finding Sonic, I can't. I just can't go out looking for Sonic. Shadow would take it that I was a traitor and start to destroy all that I worked to build up here. I want to find Sonic yes, but Tails I can't. I have things I must deal with here. I would encourage you to go find him on your own. I know too much as is, and really should arrest you for what you just told me, but since are old friends I'm not going to." says Knuckles looking down now pretty much knowing what Tails' response to this was going to be.

Tails' jaw dropped when he hears Knuckles speaking like this. Tails couldn't believe it and immediately stood up to his feet in shock at hearing this. "Knuckles, you have to know that finding Sonic could very well help us end Shadow's reign and get things back to the way they used to be. We can't run in fear of Shadow anymore, or things are just going to get worst for the people of this planet." says Tails not very angry, more at what Shadow has done than at Knuckles. Tails does understand why Knuckles is doing what he doing, but he just couldn't believe Knuckles was actually not going to help him find Sonic.

"Tails, I know how you feel right now, but I have my own family to think about here as well. If I get arrested for treason, there is no telling what Shadow will do to my family, or better yet what Lien-Da will do if she has free will do with Julie what she might wish to do with her. Those two only get along at the moment because of Shadow. Shadow holds Lien-Da back from torturing her sister with everything she has. They nearly got into it the last time they were together. There is no telling what might have happened if I wasn't there to break them up. Now look, I'm sorry I can't help, but I wish you luck in finding Sonic. I want you to find him. But I have to warn you, if Shadow does catch you with Sonic, I can't defend you. If you are with Sonic, that is the highest treason in the land according to Shadow law." says Knuckles trying to make his point as clear as day to Tails why he couldn't help him now.

Tails shakes his head and does look angry for a moment before simply shaking his head and smiling just a tad over to Knuckles. "It's ok man, I understand. You don't have to worry. I know you are just doing this to help your family. I guess I really should be going and get to looking for Sonic if you don't mind?" says Tails starting to walk towards the door again now about to leave.

Knuckles was about to just let Tails leave before he stands up and walks up behind Tails and stops him from leaving. "Thank you for understanding. I'm still glad that you came by to see us. It's good to know that Sonic has escaped and I pray that you find him. Here, don't speak a word of this." says Knuckles reaching into his pocket and placing something into Tails' hand. Tails looks down and sees a small pin in his hand, which immediately confuses Tails upon seeing it.

"What's this Knuckles? A present or something?" asks tails looking back up at Knuckles who is looking around still to make sure no one was around, which no one was. He ushering Tails to come a bit closer so that no one would hear him.

"That pin will allow you instant access to the house or access to my security room here in the house if you ever choose to return. You will be able to get past the guards without my consent whenever you need to. I do wish you would rethink what you are doing, but if you ever wish to return, I'll let you in. Just remember if you ever get caught, I can do nothing for you." says Knuckles backing away from Tails now and having a small smile on his face.

Tails takes hold of the pin before placing it inside of his pouch along with his other items he is carry in there before grinning back up to Knuckles. "Don't worry, I will return Knuckles. You have my work. I better get going to where I think Sonic might be." says Tails turning and starting to head down the stairs to leave now.

Knuckles does take a step outside the door for a moment to watch Tails and give him a wave as he headed down the stairs, before turning back into the room and shutting the door as he sees Tails exit the front door to go about his business. However, Tails didn't know that as he left the residence and began his trek back into Town, someone was now following him in the shadows.

To Be Continued……


	8. The Search Begins

A Monarch's Corruption

Chapter 8: The Search Begins

Tails had stopped only for a moment in the square of New Echidnaopolis before started to make his way back towards the airport. Tails had a mission to complete, and he wasn't about to let anything slow him down from his goal. Tails remembers that Rotor had told him that Sonic was more than likely hidden inside the ruins of their old Freedom HQ base near the ruins of Knothole. If Sonic was still there like Rotor instructed Sonic to do, then that base must be incredibly well hidden for Sonic not to be found yet.

Tails, having grown up in the area, was pretty sure he could still find the location of where the old tree used to be that led to the base, but still, those woods were most likely guarded. The Great Forest was the back way into New Mobotropolis, so of course the forest would be guarded and most likely full of traps to stop intruders or invaders from easily marching through towards the capital's backdoors.

This would be no easy task that was for sure. Tails could land in the ruin of Knothole, but that would most likely be the first place anyone looking for Sonic might think to look. Tails was most likely going to find a second landing spot and have to hike into the village ruins to find Sonic. It would take longer to get there that way, but it would most likely be the safer route to take of the options available to him at the moment.

Whichever route Tails took, he only had a short time to make it, as he makes his way back through the airport gates. Tails was sure he was going to have to go back through security again to get back to his plane, but there had been no trouble the first time, which was fine with him. What Tails didn't know was that whoever had been following him since the mansion was still following him. The person was mixed in with the crowds now and wearing a heavy jacket, but they were still following Tails the best they could.

Tails did look over his shoulder every now and then, getting this strange feeling that something wasn't right, but he never saw anything, so he just let it go. Tails eventually makes it to the terminal again and starts to head in the same direction he came from when he first got here. There were still some things bothering Tails, like what his parents will think of him just darting off again like this. However, at this moment, Sonic's safety was all that mattered to him. If Sonic was safe, Tails would feel much more at ease about the situation the planet was in.

Tails makes his way now into the security section he had come through only a few hours before now, so that he may get back to his plane as quickly as possible. The moment Tails enters the room, the same security person that approached him before starts to approach him once again. "Oh hello, did you forget something from your plane that you needed Mr. Prower?" asks the brown echidna.

Tails smiles and immediately shakes his head to the question. "No no good sir, I got a call and I must be going for a short while. I know it was a quick visit, but I will be returning as soon as what I need to get done gets done." says Tails smiling up the echidna security officer. Tails was pretty sure the echidna would let him through to his plane anyway, but he just had to check and be sure.

The echidna nods and motions for Tails to follow him over to a nearby desk. Tails nods and follows the echidna over to the desk and waits for his instructions. "Now, just scan that I.D. I gave you earlier through the machine in front of you and it will register that you have departed from the hanger, so that we know your spot is now open. You will still be in the computer of course for when you return, so when you return, all you need to do, is come do this scan again when you return. This is how we keep track of who is in the city and out of the city. No one, but royalty and military are allowed to leave the island other than through this room." says the echidna turning the machine on and waiting for Tails to present his temporary I.D.

Tails sticks the I.D. from before into the machine and watches as it goes to work scanning the I.D. bars and codes at the bottom of it. The security guard, at the same time as the machine scans the I.D., starts to type away at his computer to make sure the I.D. that was being scanned was the right one and belonging to Tails like it should. The echidna, since he already knew who Tails was, only took a moment before the machine beeped and Tails pulled his I.D. back towards him again. "Well that was simple." says the guard watching as something prints out of a nearby printer.

"So, is that all I need to do to head back to my plane?" asks Tails putting the temporary I.D. back into his satchel pocket now. Tails watched as the echidna waited for the printer to stop printing, before ripping the piece of paper that came out and sitting it down next to him. Once he did that, he goes back to typing on his computer for a moment before spinning around back towards Tails.

The echidna nods and looks up to Tails once he was finished typing. "Yes, that's all you need to do. This is the private section anyway. There is way tighter security threw the public half of this place. We try and screen the people that come onto the island so as to make sure people with too bad of a criminal record done come here, or that too many people done migrate here. There is always demand for people wanting to move here, but we have to make sure not to overpopulate the island, until more homes and apartments are build to accommodate the people." says the echidna smiling just making some small talk with Tails.

Tails listens to what the echidna and nods, understanding why they would do that, since this did look to be one of the best cities in the empire at the moment. Tails was just glad he flew in on his own instead of in with the regular citizens, since he would rather not have all his things looked through. There might even be a bit background search as well, and he didn't feel like going through any of that as well. "Well thank you sir, I will be heading to my plane now if you don't mind?" asks Tails eagerly looking ready to go now.

"Sure Mr. Prower, go ahead and head there. I will be sure someone unlocks the gate to let you back inside. You remember which number hanger it was in I'm sure, so go ahead." says the echidna taking the print out from the printer and immediately filing it within a large cabinet that is behind his desk as well. Tails, hearing that he was free to go, starts to head towards the door to head out onto the runways now, so that he could make his way back towards his plane.

A moment after Tails exits the door and stars to walk by himself this time down the long path that leads back towards his hanger, he hears a loud slam behind him. Tails turns around to see what the sound was and sees the cloaked figure standing back at the door he had just headed out of. Tails was immediately in shock and does reach to his side very slowly looking to be going for his blaster if this person was hostile to him. Tails was taking no chance, because he didn't know who would be following him on this island.

Tails rips out his blaster and holds it out towards the figure in the cloak once he reaches it at his side. "Alright, Hold it! Don't you move or I will fire! Why are you following me!" yells Tails very defensive now as he holds the blaster towards the figure. Tails had experience with this blaster so he wasn't nervous about pointing it at another Mobian, but still there was something funny about this person.

The person under the cloak immediately puts their hands up when they see how Tails gets upon finding out he has been followed like this. It was understandable, since he was so nervous that someone might be trying to get him after what he has done today. "Wait Wait, Don't shoot, It's me!" yells the person before reaching up and ripping the cloak off of them in one big pull. As the cloak fell to the ground, Tails got a big shock to see who it was. It was the red echidna girl he had seen back at Knuckles' house from before.

"Lara-Su, Is that you? What are you doing following me out here?" asks Tails as he does put his blaster away and start to approach the teenager questioningly. Tails was very curious as to why she was out here at the airport like this following him. Tails was mainly hoping she wasn't a spy, but from how things seemed back at the mansion that was unlikely.

"Ummm, yeah I was following you, but it is because I wanted to help you out Mr. Prower. I have heard stories from Dad about this Sonic guy you were talking about, and I was hoping that one day I was going to get to meet him. Dad always told me that was never going to happen, but hearing this, I want to come along and help you find him." says Lara trying to make her case as to why she was following Tails all this way. She knew she would probably never hear the end of it from her Dad when he discovered she had snuck out of the house again like this, but she just had to talk to Tails.

Tails was rather shocked she would follow him all the way to the airport like this to try and come with him, but he didn't think that was going to be possible at all. "Well, you might want to meet Sonic Lara, but what I am doing is pretty much treason to the empire. If I am found out doing this I could be arrested. If you are found associating with me, I doubt even your dad could get you off the hook from this. I don't think this is a place you should be coming to or getting involved in." says Tails telling Lara why he didn't want her coming with him. Knuckles might not be able to help him out with finding Sonic, but he didn't want Knuckles to be furious at him for putting his daughter in danger.

Lara crosses her arms and shakes her head when she hears Tails' excuse for her not to go. "No way am I staying here! I don't care if I get caught, it is better than just sitting around inside that house all day long. I can take care of myself. Dad has trained me well enough that I know how to defend myself. You don't have to worry about me getting in your way. I can carry my own weight." says Lara-Su grinning and trying to defend herself. Lara showing that she doesn't need to be babysat.

Tails smacks his head hearing this and sighs a bit. Tails knew how Knuckles was and his daughter seemed to have the same exact stubbornness that he had. If that was the case, there was going to be no dealing with her until she had her way. Tails didn't want to take her, but at the moment it sounded like he had little choice now. If she wanted to get herself captured, that was going to be on her, not him. "If you are going to come, you have to know that I am not going to be sticking my neck out to defend you. I have a mission to do, and I'm not going to be slowed down. This is dangerous. There is no telling if you will be seeing your dad again either. There is no telling what Shadow might do to us if we are caught. Are you still wanting to come?" asks Tails trying to scare her with the worst case scenarios if his mission gets messed up.

Lara did appear for a moment to consider what Tails said to her before grinning and chuckles some. This does catch Tails a little by surprised but Lara walks up to the fox and pats him on the shoulder. "You may be the adult in the matter, but trust me I'm stronger than I look. No simply guard is going to be able to take me down. Plus, I'm sure with me around the guards would be less likely to just shoot you instead of asking questions first. You don't have to worry Mr. Prower. I am going and that's that, now let's go!" says Lara now starting to actually demand to be taken along with Tails.

Tails is immediately shocked to hear Lara-Su sounding like this towards him. If she was going to continue to persist to come along, it sounded like he was going to have to let her. Tails really didn't want to let her go, but he had little choice, since she could easily snitch on him about what he is doing. He couldn't let something like that happen, so Tails just sighs and shakes his head. "Fine, you can come. My plane is a two seater, so you will sit in the back. I'm still warning you about coming along, because this is a dangerous trip. We are going to be in the general location of the capital, and that area is supposed to be heavily patrolled. If we are caught, that's your fault, not mine." says Tails grumbling a bit as he starts to turn and make his way towards the hanger again.

Lara grins and does thrust her arm down in victory at having gotten Tails to let her come along. She was determined to help him out now as she runs up behind Tails and now starts to follow him to the hanger down the path they are walking on. Tails couldn't believe what he has just gotten himself into. He was just hoping it didn't come back to bite him in the butt later.

As Tails and Lara-Su finally make it to the hanger and enter inside, Lara is immediately impressed upon seeing Tails' plane. "Wow, impressive for sure. I heard from stories from Dad as well that you were very mechanical. I'm guessing you build this yourself?" asks Lara as she and Tails make their way over to the plane.

Tails starts to climb onto one of the wings and up towards the cockpit before turning to her and nods. "Yeah, I build this baby myself. I bought a private hanger back home and am allowed to work on it all I want in there. Of course the guards might come by occasionally to check on me or what I'm building, but I'm friends with most of them so they rarely bug me. I give no one trouble and I don't give them trouble." says Tails smiling as he presses a button nearby on his plane to make the cockpit guards come off so that they could get in. Tails had installed those, so that no one could easily jump into the plane when he wasn't there and fly off in it.

"Wow, now that's cool." says Lara as she starts to climb up onto the wing that Tails is on as well, she wanting to get into the plane as well. The plane does tilt a bit making Tails look back at Lara when she gets onto the plane but starts to climb into the cockpit area anyway. Lara watches as Tails gets into the front, and immediately jumps into the back seat area.

When she jumps in like that it does shake the plane around making Tails look back at Lara when she does that. "Be careful ok. While you are back there, you do not touch one button or mess with one tool. I am the one flying this thing, and if you touch something, you might mess up my concentration. I sure hope you understand that." says Tails looking very serious when he tells her that. He didn't want to crash, and also he wished to be stealthy. There was no way he could be stealthy if she was messing with buttons back there and messing with his train of thought.

"Don't worry Mr. Prower, I will be fine back here. I won't mess with your plane." says Lara starting to strap herself in. They weren't that complicated, and Lara had been on ships before. This ships seatbelts were no different than those.

"Oh and one other thing, you can call me Tails. You don't have to continue with that Mr. Prower stuff." says Tails chuckling as he pressed the start up button to allow the plane's engines to start up. At the same time the engines come on, it also activates the automatic hanger doors to make them rise up rather quickly so that they could leave.

"Oh ok, I will Tails." she says glad she didn't have to keep up that formal act her Dad makes her play with most of the people he meets. She has to act super polite and proper to most people, so getting to act casually doesn't always get to happen. Lara stares out her windows now as she watches Tails back up out of the hanger and makes his way towards the runway now.

"Now, just sit back and relax back there. This is at least an hour flight from the island's current location." says Tails over the speakers now, seeing as he has his headset on. Lara had put one on as well, though it did seem to fit her a bit strangely because of how her head and hair were shaped at the moment. Lara didn't really want to have to fly for that long, but this was a small aircraft than the ones Knuckles flew around in if he needed to get to places, but she just watches as Tails pulls up to the runway to get ready to take off.

Tails did have to wait a few minutes for the runway to be clear of other ships coming in, but shortly afterwards Tails get the ok on his headset that the runway is clear. Tails gives the plane a few shots of gas before shooting forward very suddenly, jerking Lara back a little bit as he shoots forward and into the air. Tails was ready for what had to be done now. Tails just had to wait not till he arrived at his destination and found a place to land before he can start his search for Sonic.

……………………….

Back at the mansion, Knuckles has gone downstairs into his command center room and is sitting in his large chair staring at the monitors that show him what is going on around the island. He is able to watch what is going on, in practically every important area of the city all at once, just to make sure for himself that everything was working as he planned it to be.

Knuckles sometimes came in here just to be alone, while other times he was here on serious business. At the moment, Knuckles just wanted to be alone. He had just turned down an offer to find one of his friends that he hadn't seen in so long, just to protect his island. If he didn't have to keep such a close eye on his people and the island he looks after, he probably would have said yet to Tails' request in a heartbeat. This was hurting Knuckles, because he had to stay behind and let Tails find Sonic all on his own.

Knuckles starts to sigh, but suddenly the console begins to beep several times repeatedly showing that someone was trying to get into contact with him. Knuckles didn't really want to get it, but seeing as that line only went off when something important was going on, he didn't really have much choice. He finally reaching forward and pressing the switch to engage the call.

"Yes, this is Knuckles. Is something up?" he asks over his headset. He was hoping it was just a routine check in, because he was in no mood to see normal visitors at the moment. However, that wasn't going to be the case this time.

"Um, yes sir. There is a royal transport ship landing in your private landing space in the rear. You have been requested to come to the runway to meet the ship as it is landing." says the guard over the speaker. Knuckles sighs hearing that knowing he had business to attention to now. If it was a royal ship, that meant it was most likely one of two people coming to see him. From things that have happened in the past, he has a pretty good idea who would be coming to see him.

Knuckles gets out of his chair, but does press the button once again before he leaves the room. "I'll be there in just a moment." he says back to the guard. Knuckles makes his way to the door that opens up automatically when he nears it and heads on out towards the backyard. It only takes him a moment to walk down the nearby hall and out his back door to head out to see who was there.

Knuckles heads up the steps that are to his left and makes his way up to the helipad that is in his backyard. Just as he was told, there on his helipad sat a royal transport ship with its engines starting to power down. Knuckles stands to the side and waits next to the glass door that leads into his living room area where he and Tails had been talking before.

A moment later the door on the side of the transport unlocks as it pushes outwards and down to the ground, ready to be unloaded. A group of Dark Legion Soldiers come out of the transport first and do scan the immediate area for any threats before finally Lien-Da exits the transport grinning as she heads over towards Knuckles. Knuckles does immediately rolls his eyes seeing his sister-in-law here. It was never a good sign of things to come, since she always brings trouble with her. "Hello Lien-Da, what do I owe the honor of this visit? Usually you at least give me some notice before coming over here." he says not sounding all that excited to see her, which he wasn't.

Lien-Da just grins as she walks over to Knuckles and stands very close to him, so close that it does make Knuckles a bit uncomfortable that he takes a step or two backwards. "It's more fun when I don't tell you. Normally I would love to sit around and tease you for a few hours, but I am here this time on official business. We will go into your living room here and talk it over in private." she says turning to face all her soldiers that came out of the transport with her. "You guys surround the house and scan the perimeter. Make sure that no one disturbs up during our meeting. I mean no one you all here me!" she yells at the guards barking orders at them, which does get their attention as they all start to scatter in many directions to watch the house.

Knuckles shakes his head a bit when Lien-Da finds it in her best interest to release her personal guards around his home like that, just for a personal meeting like this. He never much appreciated her commanding style either, but she was still his superior, since she was second in command and the primary military coordinator. Knuckles, not wanting to start something, heads over to the glass door, opens it and heads on inside allowing Lien-Da to follow him.

Lien-Da walks through the door and hears it get closed by one of Knuckles' guards who stands at that door to keep watch over Knuckles. Lien-Da would prefer one of her own guards be there, but she could tell that was one of the guards that had a normal post there. That guard could stay, but that wasn't the reason for her visit. She just lets that go as she makes her way over to Knuckles. "Well, if we are alone now. I would like to relay some information to you. These come straight from Lord Shadow." she says to Knuckles.

Knuckles is surprised that she is bringing news for him from Shadow and doing it in person as well. Usually only the most top secret messages were brought in person, otherwise he got a video message from Lien-Da telling him what it was she wanted. "Well, go ahead and tell me what it is that Shadow needs." says Knuckles wanting to know now. If she went ahead and told him now, she might leave faster and not bug him anymore than she already is at the moment.

"Alright, here it is. We have some intelligent reports that an old friend of yours Tails Prower most likely will be trying to get in contact with you soon. Shadow learned not long ago that this Tails fox guy might have infiltrated his castle, and Shadow is now in search of him wanting to find out what he knows. Shadow is keeping all this a secret, but he would like you to report back to him if you find out anything about what the fox knows if he gets in contact with you. Shadow just wants to make sure the accusations are false and will not hurt him in the least. I'm sure being an old friend of yours, Shadow will treat him just fine." she says turning away from Shadow and going over to the couch and sits down. Knuckles is rather shocked to hear her say this, especially after having just met with Tails not long before her arrival here.

"Oh I see, well if he contacts me I will be sure and give you or Shadow a contact right away. Would you like something to drink before you leave? I can give a call to Abby to bring you up some tea or something?" asks Knuckles starting to head over to a nearby door so that he might do that, but does turn back to look to Lien-Da before he does so. He has gotten her yelling before for putting words in her mouth, so he just plays along with this little respect thing she wants from him when she comes to visit him.

Lien-Da does chuckle some when she does notice Knuckles actually offering her something to drink like that. She couldn't pass up an opportunity like that when it presented himself. "Oh yes please, I would like some tea, now why don't you go be a dear and get me some while I rest my tired self on the couch here." she says falling back onto the couch acting tired now. She does peek out of her eyes a moment later seeing Knuckles having left and chuckles seeing her little act worked to get him to go get her something.

Lien-Da was about to rest when she notices something strange on the couch next to her. There was a piece of paper lying upside down between two cushions. It looked like it had fallen there by accident. She reaches over and pulls the paper out from between the cushions and turns it over. The moment she gets a look at the picture that is on the other side, she immediately grins big. It was the photo Tails had shown Knuckles of his family. Apparently he hadn't put the picture into his belt securely enough and it had fallen back out onto the couch before he had noticed.

When Lien-Da saw this picture she immediately knew that she was just a little late in giving this message, and that Knuckles most likely has already met up with the fox. She immediately stuffs the picture into her pocket before pulling out her communicator out of the same pocket and puts it up to her mouth. "Hey, this is me. One of you guys go into Knuckle's command center room and make a copy of his most recent surveillance footage of this room for the past few days. Sneak it back to the transport and I'll meet you there shortly. I think that what I might need is on those tapes." she says in his communicator. She quickly shuts it off afterwards so the soldier couldn't contact her back. She didn't want it going off with Knuckles about to come back soon most likely.

It was a good thing she did, because Knuckles came back a short time later with a tray of tea on it. "I got the tea you asked for. Abby didn't really seem to happy at having to prepare it so fast, but she did it anyway." he says walking over and sitting it on the table. Lien-Da does reach out and quickly downs half the cup she was given first before sitting it back down and standing up.

"Sorry Knuckles, but I just got a call and have to go for now. I'm sorry to rush so quickly, but I've got orders at the moment and I need to deal with them." she says rather quickly heading towards the door acting as if she is in a hurry, but does stop at the door for a moment to look back at Knuckles who looked a bit shocked at her wanting to leave so quickly like this.

"Oh, well I guess if you have orders, nothing can stop that then. If you have to go, than fine with me if you need to leave." says Knuckles acting a bit upset that she had to leave so soon, but inside he was practically jumping for joy that she was leaving so quickly. He was glad for whatever had happened, because it meant that she would leave before Julie found out she was here and something started up between the two of them.

Lien-Da starts to open the door but nods back to Knuckles grinning. "Don't worry, I will contact you again as soon as something comes up. I might need you soon, but I need to make sure of something first. So just sit tight and I'll get back to you." says Lien-Da before quickly rushing out the door the moment she sees a soldier starting to head into the ship, meaning he had already gone and made a copy of the surveillance tapes like she had asked.

Knuckles is still confused by all this, since she did rush out of here rather fast. He just figured she must have gotten a message from Shadow and had to rush out to do something for him. It was the most obvious reason as to why she would dart out like that, but he is mostly just happy she left. He shuts the curtains to the glass screen door, not wanting to see her leave. Knuckles then goes to find Julie for now, seeing as he seems to have gotten away with meeting Tails for now at least.

Lien-Da runs over and into the ship before whistling and waiting for the rest of her guards to come filing back into the ship along with her and the other guard that was inside the ship. Once she makes sure that everyone was on board, she gives the signal to the pilot. The pilot nods to her as he starts up the engines and begins to make to the ship hover off the ground so that it could take off. "Alright, did you copy the footage I asked you to?" she asks the soldier next to her.

The soldier nods and reaches into his pocket for a moment before pulling out a small tape. "This is what I copied from the console. I didn't check it, but this is what I was able to hack out in the little time I had." says the soldier handing the tape over to Lien-Da now. He had no use for it, so he had no reason to keep it.

Lien-Da grins as she takes the tape and makes her way towards the back of the ship to a second room, apart from the area where her soldiers sit during a flight. She walks into a room that looked like a communications center. She immediately sits down in front of a large computer and sticks the tape into the receiver port. Once the computer accepts the tape, she types a few command into the computer before getting a picture of the living room on her monitor.

Nothing was on the screen at the moment, but she immediately presses the fast forward button as she begins to scan the tape to see if anyone would come onto it. She kept a close eye on the tape, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The tape was mainly full of Knuckles and his family spending time in the room or cleaning people coming in and out of the room as well. Apparently, the guard had gotten a couple of days of material, which was tedious but more efficient that way.

After about five minutes of fast forwarding, Lien-Da slams the play button when she sees exactly what she thought. She could see Knuckles sitting there on the couch talking to Tails. She checks the date and time seeing in fact it was only about two hours before the time she arrived that Tails was there. She had just missed him, so he probably wasn't that far away.

Lien-Da does keep it on play now as she now listen to the dialogue to see if she can pick up a clue as to where Tails might be and why he contacted Knuckles. She didn't like the majority of the conversation, because it was boring. However, when Tails got to the part mentioning Sonic and sneaking into the castle, that's when she knew she had what she needed.

That confirmed that Tails had snuck into the castle and was looking Sonic. She figures Tails must have talked to someone that knew Sonic escaped and is now trying to find the hedgehog before Shadow's troops can. Shadow had an idea of where Sonic might have been hiding all this time, but had never been able to find the exact location. If Shadow was even remotely close, that most likely was where Tails was likely to be heading. She needed to relay this information as soon as possible.

She immediately picks up one of the radios near her and does fiddle with the frequency a bit before putting the radio up to her mouth. "Agent one ten, come in agent one ten. This is Lien-Da over." she says cutting her speech there and waiting for a return in communications. She wasn't expecting an immediate response since the person was most likely undercover, but knew she would get a response sooner or later.

It took about five minutes, before Lien-Da finally got a response to her message. "This is agent one ten reporting in. I am alone and read you loud and clear." says the voice on the other end. Lien-Da grins immediately when she hears the response. She was about to try contacting the agent again, but she is glad she doesn't have to wait any longer.

"There you are. Good, I have some information that you might need at a later time. Keep an eye out at your post. The contact I told you about before may be in your region soon, so I want you to be sure and keep your cover and look out for him. There might be other people out there as well, but whoever you run into, do not engage them. We need anyone that might be around alive. There is no telling who all might be out in that area, so just use caution. If you discover anything, please get back in contact with me. This is Lien-Da over and out." she says before cutting the line to the agent. She didn't want to keep the agent exposed any more than she might be.

Once she cut radio contact from the agent she grins yet again and reaches for another communicator. "Now, I better report to Shadow and tell him my findings, and my other little plan. I'm sure Shadow will approve as well." she says starting to laugh rather loudly. Lien-Da then begins to dial in the coordinates for Shadow's private line as the transport ship makes its way off the island over the ocean on its return trip back towards the capital.

To Be Continued……


	9. Forest Recon

A Monarch's Corruption

Chapter 9: Forest Recon

Tails was just coming into view of the Great Forest after an hour of flying. Just like he had thought, he could already see off in the far distance some small ships flying around in the distance. Tails would have to immediately go into stealth mode to make sure that he isn't seen landing or his cover might be blown. "Alright Lara, we are coming in on approach of the Great Forest. This should be where Sonic is hidden in this forest. When I land, you will have to keep yourself moving stealthily. We can't afford to be spotted by even one patrol that might be in the area. If Shadow gets a hold of us in the forest, he will definitely suspect that Sonic is hidden in the forest somewhere. We have to keep quiet. I hope you understand that." says Tails as he does see a small clearing nearby.

The clearing looked like the place he was going to have to land in, if he didn't want to be spotted. Tails was going to try and be easier with landing this time as well. He was a bit too clumsy last time and left skid marks in the dirt when he landed too quickly. Tails had to be sure that it didn't happen again, or risk being found out and never getting his plane back again.

"Are you sure Sonic is hidden out in this forest Tails? It would seem like a hard place to survive to me. If he is out there, how in the world are we ever going to find him? There looks to be miles and miles of forest out there. We will be searching for days!" says Lara pretty much stating the obvious to someone who had never been to this forest before. Tails had grown up in this forest and knew a lot of its passageways still. He was pretty sure he could track down the old Freedom HQ and find Sonic, if he is still there.

"Don't worry Lara. When we get down there, just follow me. I'm pretty sure I can still find my way around the forest. I know it will have changed a lot, from growth and all that, but I'm sure I can still go by the basic layout and find my way to the ruins of Knothole." says Tails as he starts to turn and make an approach towards the clearing up ahead. He is being sure to come in slower this time and give plenty of room to lower himself down. If he came down too quickly he would likely make much larger digs into the dirt than he did before. It was probably unavoidable to make some holes in the ground, but he could make them very light so it's not that noticeable.

"I sure hope you do. I don't want to get lost in that forest for days looking for something that may not even exist." says Lara seeing Tails starting to come in for approach now and holds on. She had never been with him during a landing, so she had no clue what kind of lander he was. Tails seemed to be a good pilot so far, so she just has to trust him, since he was the one flying after all.

"I said don't worry about it Lara. Now be quiet for a moment so that I can land the plane. I need to concentrate." says Tails grumbling a bit hearing Lara complaining about looking for Sonic. Tails didn't care how long it would take, he would find Sonic. If it took days, then it was going to take days. Tails had food packed away in his satchel, and he even picked up a little more in town before he left. He had also somehow managed to sneak a few of his mother's cookies into his satchel as well if they were needed. Tails was prepared if this took a long time.

Tails' plane slowly makes its way towards the clearing getting closer and closer towards the ground. He does have to move around slightly to even himself out, but Tails does just what he does best as his wheels finally touch the ground. Unlike like time, Tails lands much softer this time. The plane was simply pushing back the grass and only left a small hole where the wheels first hit the ground. He wasn't in as much of a hurry as the last time, since he might have been shot down if he didn't get down fast last time.

Tails continues to drive through the grass for a moment before cutting the engines as they get to the tree line. Tails just lets the plane glide silently until it finally enters the edge of the forest. The moment it hits this point, Tails slams on the breaks so that the wings don't hit any trees. "Well I think that was a smooth enough landing." says Tails grinning as he presses the button to pop the roof of the front and backseat cock pits upwards. Tails sits his headset down before he starts to stand up to climb out of the plane.

Tails lands on the ground a moment later with a thud, before turning and seeing Lara jumping down to the ground next to him. "We need to hide the plane now under some brush so it is not easily spotted. If the plane is taken then we will have a hard time getting out of here later." says Tails going to some nearby bushes to start to gather sticks and branches for the cover. Lara didn't seem too amused with having to do this, but she gets to helping Tails cover the plane with sticks and brush like he asked.

It was a rather slow process, since this was a big plane, but Tails and Lara do eventually get the plane pretty camouflaged into the brush. The plane does look like a rather large bush now, but Tails prayed that would be good enough to hide it. He was sure he did better at covering the plane than he did last time. Last time it wasn't as big of a deal, since he hadn't done anything yet. Now that Tails has done something wrong, it was more important to stay hidden.

Lara sighs and leans up again a nearby tree looking very tired and bored from having just done that. "Remind me again why I had to do that and waist all that time?" asks Lara still not sounding all that amused with this. She wasn't used to doing that much manual labor all at once. Most of the labor that her father had her doing was in the weight room, when they would do their workouts.

Tails smacks his hand to his head hearing Lara say that. He didn't know she was going to be like this when he got forced into bringing her along, but he didn't seem to have much choice with how she was back at the airport. "I told you before. We have to hide the plane, or risk being spotted easily and losing the plane. If we lose the plane, we will be in big trouble." says Tails repeating himself yet again to Lara-Su.

"Well I just hope this hiding the plane doesn't come back to bite us later. Now which way do we go?" asks Lara once again sounding like she didn't want to be out here roaming around for nothing. It was certainly obvious that Tails had grown up in the woods and she hadn't. Tails has been out in these woods for a good portion of his younger life, so he was pretty used to being out here. Lara, on the other hand, has been raised in the city or on the floating island country sides. She didn't go through the things Tails has been through when he was younger.

Tails grumbles yet again and points to the north of their current location. "I think we go this way. We will probably have to hike for a couple of miles to get there, but we will get there eventually. We have to go slow now ok. If we run and run into a Dark Legion patrol, then we will be very easy to spot. Let's take it slow now. Follow me, I will be sure and get us there. Just keep quiet now ok." says Tails hoping that will shut Lara-Su up for awhile. This mission was all about stealth and sneaking threw the woods without being caught. Tails knew there were troops out here in the woods, but he had not a clue where or how many people were out here with them.

Lara finally just nods to Tails and begins to follow him as the two begin to make their long trek through the woods. It only took a few minutes of walking before Tails grabbed Lara and thrusts her up against a tree putting a hand up to her mouth. Nearby was a small patrol of Dark Legion soldiers just like he had said. It looked like there were about five of them, and also a recon hover bike soldier as well with the troop.

Tails stood there next to Lara peering around the tree and does let her see now why he did what he just did to her. Lara does immediately go wide eyed when she sees just how close they were to walking right into a group of soldiers like that. She stays as still as she can possibly be now, not wanting to get caught out here with Tails. She does figure she would fight if she had to, but she really didn't want to right now.

"Shhhh, if we keep quiet they should just pass on." whispers Tails to Lara. Lara didn't have to think twice about that as she holds as still as possible and didn't say a word. Tails was planning on the guards just moving along, but instead they stopped and seemed to be taking a break right there in front of them both.

"Let's take a break here. I'm getting tired of patrolling in these woods. There is never anything going on out here." says one of the foot soldiers immediately sitting down on a nearby rock. The other four foot soldiers nodded and sat down on the ground in random spots to start taking a water break. The soldier on the bike wasn't as happy about the others taking a break and seemed to be grouching at some of the others.

"Oh come on you lazy bastards! We still have to continue our patrol! We have another hour of patrol before we can be relieved out here! We don't have time to rest." says the soldier sitting on the bike. This echidna was most likely the highest ranking of the soldiers, but the others didn't seem to be listening at the moment. The others wanted a rest, and they are taking that rest.

Tails sighs hearing this knowing they won't be able to move during the entire time they take their break. If they so much as move from the spot they are standing at, they are most likely going to be spotted there behind that big tree. They hadn't even gotten a mile into the forest before this happened. Things were not going as Tails planned them at all.

"Do any of you even know what we are looking for out here? We have been just roaming around out here finding nothing for at least a month now." says one of the soldiers starting to complain to the other soldiers. The others all do start to nod as well and look up at the soldier on the bike. The soldier on the bike also shrugs when they look to him. Even he didn't know why they were out there. All he knew was that they needed to patrol this forest and look for hostiles that might be sneaking around it.

"Well, whatever it is that we are looking for, I hope it is found soon, so we can get the heck out of these woods. It's creepy out here." says a different soldier as they sit there on their rocks. They are all drinking from water canteens they are carrying with them. Tails does continue to peek around the tree watching these guys having their drink, but just keeps silent wanting them to move before he has to find an alternate way around. They didn't have to stay there all day long while a group of complaining soldiers takes a water break in front of him.

Tails reaches down and starts to fiddle through his utility belt hoping to find something that he could use to sneak around the guards. When Tails was about to choose something he hears a small woosh and then one of the soldiers yell out, like something had just happened to him. Tails immediately peers around the tree seeing one soldier lying on the ground face first and the other four all standing there with their laser blaster in hand looking around the trees. "What was that! Something just hit one or own! Whatever that was I didn't see where it came from!" says one of the soldiers sounding very nervous as he scans for whatever just took out one of their soldiers.

Tails had not a clue what was going on, but he had to keep watching to see whatever happened was going to happen again. Tails' question was soon answer in that he hear the sound again before seeing three other soldiers falling down flat leaving just two soldiers left. "What's going on! What is happening to the others!" says the last regular foot soldier starting to panic now. The soldier bends down to check on one of the others that had fallen onto the ground before something hit him as well making him fall to the ground face first as well.

Tails doesn't see anything happening around him, which does have him concerned since something was happening to these soldiers. Tails does grin when he sees this, thinking he might have a clue what it is. However, if Tails wasn't right, he now has something else to be s cared about. Whatever was getting these soldiers was fast and efficient. Tails continues to watch as the last soldier tries to get onto his bike to get away before yelling out just the same as the others had and falls to the ground.

Tails continues to watch for a moment seeing nothing happen now that the soldiers have all fallen to the ground. Tails didn't want to just run out there and see what happened, because whatever was around might still be here. Tails immediately pulls out his blaster and motions for Lara to follow close by him as he makes his way over towards the downed soldiers. Lara didn't really want to follow Tails at first after seeing what she had just seen, but seeing how serious Tails looked, she figured he knew what he was doing.

Tails creeps very carefully over to the group of soldiers, seeing them all lying on the ground looking to be unconscious. Tails kneels down next to the commander and starts to look for bumps on them, to see if they have been knocked out. What Tails found was completely the opposite of what he expected to find. Tails finds a tiny syringe shot into the side of the echidna's neck. Apparently someone had shot them all with very strong tranquillizer darts.

Tails looks back up to Lara and back at the soldier on the ground very confused by this. "Someone shot these guys with a tranquillizer. If someone shot these guys, that means they are most likely nearby. I don't know if they did this to help us, or just because they don't like the Legion either. Whatever the reason, we better get out of here as soon as possible, but I do have a new idea if you are willing to go through with it?" asks Tails grinning over at Lara now. Lara sees that grin on Tails' face and does wonder what the fox has thought up for her do to now.

"What is it?" she asks wanting to know now. Lara hoped whatever it was, wouldn't be something that was going to put her in danger, but since they were already in danger by being out here, she had little choice. She was going to have to go along with it most likely.

"Get this soldier's clothes off and put them on over your own clothes. If we run into any other soldiers, you can just play along with the role that you are a soldier escorting me back to town, because I got lost during a hike." says Tails. Tails figured it was a good plan and would allow them to get by other patrols a lot easier. As long as none of the soldiers got too suspicious of them, they should be able to walk through the forest without much effort at all.

"I would rather not Tails. Do you have any idea where that soldier may have been? Who knows what is on or in his clothes." says Lara sticking her tongue out in disgust now. That wasn't exactly her idea of a good plan, because it meant she had to wear some strangers clothes. It sounded disgusting to her, and she really didn't want to do it.

Tails smacks his head yet again hearing the girl starting to complain yet again about something he said. "Lara, I know you might be the Guardian's daughter and I know you might be the stronger one. I'm not really sure about that one, but you might. However, there is one thing you have failed to realize. I AM THE ONE IN CHARGE HERE!" yells Tails angrily not wanting to yell like that, but he really had to choice at this point. He was starting to lose patience with her constant complaining since they landed out here. "Now, please go get that soldiers clothes on now, while I raid some supplies from some of the others here." says Tails grumbling pretty steamed at the moment.

Lara is rather shocked when Tails suddenly takes charge like that, but seeing as he was the adult in the situation she had little choice but to listen to his orders. It was that and the fact that she didn't want to hear him yell at her like that again. She has been yelled or fussed at enough for goofy off during training by her father. She didn't want to be yelled at anymore, so she does just as Tails asks and picks up the echidna to start to take his Dark Legion robe off him.

Tails picks through a few pocks of the legion soldiers nearby, and he does take a few blaster batteries from them. Tails figured he might new a few extra shots for his blaster if whatever took out these soldiers came back. This probably would put the other soldiers in the area on alert when they are found, but Tails just hoped his plan to dress up Lara would work.

Tails turns and stands back up from his pocket searches to see Lara standing in the Dark Legion robe that she took. Lara had the hood down still at the moment, but even without it up, she pretty much fit the description of the typical Dark Legion soldier. The legion wasn't gender discriminative obviously, since their main commander was a female, so a higher ranking officer being a female was nothing new at all in their ranks. "Wow, you fit that part rather well Lara. Just pull up the hood and we will get going. We have no reason to stick around here any longer than needed." says Tails trying to get her to hurry up so that they can get moving again.

Lara did smile slightly seeing as Tails didn't yell at her this time or complain about her. She quickly putting the hood up and walking right up next to Tails and grabbing onto his arm. Tails looks up at her immediately when she grabs him like that, wondering why she was doing it. "I figured if I am actually escorting you around. I should at least have a hand on you to make sure you aren't running away from me. Wouldn't that make more sense?" asks Lara.

Tails is a bit shocked when she said that, because it made perfect sense to him. "Hmmm, that actually makes sense. Good spotting Lara. Yes, keep an arm on me for now. That should help any other soldiers think I am simply being escorted back, and you are just keeping a close eye on me. If I was a prisoner I would most likely be in cuffs, not just grabbed on my arm." says Tails nodding. Tails didn't fight to make Lara let go him, but he did hurry her along away from the group of downed soldiers to keep hiking through the forest.

Tails and Lara continue along together for at least half an hour and a mile later into the forest before Tails sees something ahead that looks very strange to him. "Lara do you see that?" asks Tails as he starts to walk forward slowly to get a better look at what was in the distance. When Tails got a bit closer to see what it was, he is shocked to see a second Dark Legion scouting group on the ground unconscious yet again.

"What in the world? A second squad is on the ground out cold? Tails this is getting strange. Whoever is doing this might come after us next." says Lara looking around them to see if anyone was around. There was nothing but trees and more trees in all directions of the two at the moment, so whoever was doing this was well hidden.

"I think your right. We better just press on and ignore these people. This is getting a bit creepy even for me." says Tails quickly changing direction just slightly so as to go around the fallen patrol. Once the two have make their small trek around the fallen people, so as to not be seen in this group, the two move back to their proper course.

Tails figures he still has at least two more miles of hiking before he gets to the ruins, so he is sure to pace himself and not use all his energy getting too excited as he heads for his final destination. Yet, as Tails is moving his sensitive fox ears do suddenly peak up. Tails stops dead in his track and pulls his arm away from Lara. "Shhhh, I think the person is close. Don't move and keep an eye out." says Tails no moving a muscle at the moment. Lara does just as Tails asks and doesn't move or speak at all.

Tails keeps his ears held high and scans the area still looking for the person. He was about to give up before he looks in the one place he had totally neglected to check, the tree tops. Tails had only been looking at the low branches or the trees in the distance. Tails instead looks straight up and gets a massive shock when he sees a figure standing on one of the branches right above him. "THERE!" he yells out as he reaches into his pocket trying to grab one of his flash grenades that Mina had packed for him. This seemed like the perfect situation to use one of them.

As Tails is going for the grenade the person, wearing a green body suit to match in with all the trees jumps down in front of him and holds up a small blaster. "I wouldn't try anything funny dears. You wouldn't want me getting rough now would you? Now when I'm here to help you." said the person in the suit. Tails had his hand on the grenade, and it was halfway out of his belt pouch when the person pointed the blaster at Tails. Lara was completely caught in shock at all of this and immediately puts her hands up to the person holding the gun.

Tails was rather angry at being caught in such a sticky situation like this by this person. Whoever they were, they were good. They had managed to follow Tails and Lara for no telling how long and stay hidden all that time. There was one statement the person said that caught Tails' attention when they said it. "What do you mean you are here to help us? Who the heck are you?' asks Tails not moving a muscle since the person still had their blaster pointed at him. He wasn't about to get shot when he was this close to hopefully finding Sonic.

The figure in the body suit chuckles when Tails asks them that question and immediately puts the blaster back to their side. "Of course you wouldn't recognize me in this. People don't see me that much ever since I got promoted to full stealth spy. I guess showing you would be easier than dragging you alone for a full hour." says the person reaching up and grabs onto their face mast and beings to pull on.

Tails slips his grenade back into his back and starts to straighten himself back up when the person begins to pull their mast off. Once the mask came off, Tails was very surprised to see who this person was. He hadn't seen her in years. It was of all people Rouge under that mask. "Whoa! Now that's not what was expecting. I haven't seen you in years Rouge. But if what you just said is true and you are a spy, doesn't that mean you work for Shadow?" asks Tails questioningly, since if she was, this would be bad.

Rouge chuckles once again as he keeps her mask off for now. "If I was dear, do you think I would be talking to you like this? I don't meet with my enemy. I simply take them out or capture them if that is my mission. I was asked to assist you by Knuckles. I work for him. I am a member of his super secret spy network. I was in the area watching Shadow's movements when I got this call from him about you being in the area." she says smiling to Tails trying to convince him what she was telling him was true.

From how it sounded to Tails, she seemed to be telling the truth. However, being that she was one of the best spies around, if he remembered her right, if she was against them, she would have taken them out already. Tails figures she must be a spy from Knuckles side and nods to her. "Well ok, if you say so. You are lucky you are so quick on the draw. If it was anyone else I might have been able to get my grenade off and made an escape. You aren't the only one that is quick on their feet or has sneaky little ideas." says Tails chuckling as he starts to feel more comfortable around her now. Lara didn't seem the same, since she doesn't know this Rouge person like Tails does.

Rouge is rather impressed with the now grown fox's attitude. Tails used to be such a coward when he was younger or he would rely really heavily on others help. However, these days it looks like Tails has grown a backbone and learned how to take care of himself, without having to rely on his friends so often. "If it had been some of the other agents you might have gotten that off and been able to throw them. I'm the best of my unit. You have to be super fast to be able to outdo me. But yes, I see you now have caught on that I am here to help you. I was the one that took out those guard patrols for you. They were easy pickings with my tranquillizer gun. I can't hurt those soldiers, but I can always knock them out to get past them." she says chuckling as she rubs at a second gun connected to the other side of her waist.

Tails was actually rather relieved to know that he had her help out here in the forest. She would be a big help if they were to encounter any more patrols. She could easily knock them out and get past them without being spotted. It seemed their luck was actually turning for the better, rather than their luck turning to crap. "Well, thank goodness you are here now. Did Knuckles tell you what we were doing out here? If you are really working for him, you should know, since he is the only one I have told." says Tails right away.

Rouge chuckles seeing that Tails still knew what questions to ask to check people's loyalty. It was apparently a trick he has honed over the years, since she last got a chance to see him. "Of course I know why you are out here. You are looking for Sonic. I knew I would be running into you, but I got no information about her being out here too? It was supposed to only be you searching I thought?" she asks. Lara was not mentioned to her at all, so it was a big shock when she originally saw two people instead of one coming from the plane.

Tails is relieved to hear she knows that he is looking for Sonic. Knuckles was the only one that knew about his mission to find Sonic, besides his parents. Rouge probably didn't even know they still were around, so she had to be working for Knuckles. "Yeah, well, Lara here sort of forced her way along on the trip. I had little choice in the matter it seemed. She knew what was going on, so I had to take her along." says Tails speaking honestly now. Lara didn't appreciate the tone Tails was using when referring to her coming along like that, even if she knew it was pretty accurate.

Rouge scratches her chin for a moment before nodding to Tails. "Well if she is coming along, it is fine with me. As long as she doesn't slow the process down, it is no problem here. I was rather impressed at you thinking up to take one of the soldiers uniforms like for a disguise as well. Normal patrols would probably not give you a second look. There are people that occasionally get lost out here and need an escort back to town. That was a very clever plan indeed." she nodding. It was a rather ingenious plan she had to admit, but they would have never come up with it if she hadn't taken out that first patrol for them.

"So are you going to follow along down here with us as I search for Sonic? We still have a bit of a hike till we get there, but it might be easier on you if you walk down here with us instead of up in the trees." says Tails smiling. Tails was in a much better mood now that his luck was looking up like this. He figured that if his luck was coming up now, he might have a better chance at finding Sonic once they get to the ruins.

"I will when we get to your destination. I think I should stay in the trees for a bit longer and stay ahead of you so I can take out any other patrols for you before they spot you. These darts will keep soldiers asleep for many hours. We don't have to worry about raising the alert around here that something might be up. There are some plants around here I think that can knock people out, so people believe anything usually." says Rouge shrugging. In fact she knew the plant part was true, because it was what she was using for her darts. Using the plants to make knock out darts gave her much more ammo for her tranquillizer than she could ever carry in normal darts.

Tails nods thinking that was probably for the best. She had already taken out two patrols for him, so if she could do that, he had better let her stay ahead of him as he hiked. If she walked down here on the ground with him, she might get spotted as well. Having a pair of eyes in the sky would definitely do them some good in the woods. These woods used to be so friendly and nice when Tails was young, but now they are crawling with Dark Legion troops. Actual people are much harder to predict than simple robots that might have wandered in here originally. "Yeah, that's a good idea. Go on and go back up and we will continue along. We need to get going anyway. If we stay out here for too long it will get dark on us and we will never find where we need to go in the dark." says Tails.

Rouge nods and immediately puts her mask back on over her face, she leaving only her eyes open for people to see when she puts the mask back on. "I'll be up in the trees ahead of you. Just because you don't see me, doesn't mean I'm not there. If you need me, just whistle and I'll come back to the ground as soon as possible." she says before spreading her wings and flying back up into the trees.

Tails turns and looks back to Lara for a moment and motions for her to follow him again. "Let's hurry along. We only have I would say about four hours of daylight left. If we are going to find Sonic we have to do so now. We still have two miles to go, so we should get there in a few hours most likely if we precede carefully." says Tails as he starts to walk. Lara just nods to Tails this time, not feeling like talking to Tails at just this moment, after what she heard him say about her to Rouge.

Lara was a bit grouchy at Tails for his comment, but also she was wondering why Rouge had left so quickly without even saying one word to her. Lara didn't even get a chance to say one word to her really before she jumped back up into the trees once again. Something was up with that woman, and Lara wasn't as trusting as Tails was. She had never met this Rouge person before, but whatever opinion Tails had of her, Lara didn't share the same one as he did.

Tails and Lara continue the hike now through the woods at a slightly faster pace now. They weren't being as careful as they had before they knew Rouge was in the tree watching out for them. They wouldn't need to sneak and could walk normally. If they were to come across another patrol, it was likely to be taken out before they have a chance to spot it. Tails felt a lot better knowing she was up there, but Lara still was a bit iffy of her.

It took nearly three more hours before Tails holds out a hand to Lara once again to make her stop. "Wait, I think we are here. Look up ahead. There is a clearing." says Tails pointing to get her to see. Sure enough, up ahead was a rather large clearing up ahead of them both. These most likely were the ruins that Tails had told Lara about.

"So if those are the ruins over there, where is this Sonic guy suppose to be? Why would he be living in ruins?" asks Lara looking around still only seeing forest all around them. This looked like the last place anyone would be hiding out to her. If Sonic was around, he was likely well hidden, because from Lara's first glances, it looked like no one was around.

Rouge finally drops down from the trees next to Lara and Tails right after she says that. "Sonic is most likely hiding somewhere around here, if what Tails told Knuckles is true. Yet, this area has been searched before I thought. If he is hidden here, he has picked a wonderful hiding spot." she says looking around with the other two now.

"Well, let's get to looking. Who knows, with us being here on our own, Sonic might come out on his own." says Tails as he starts to scour the area looking for any signs of their old freedom HQ area. Tails definitely recognized this area from when he was younger, but things have defiantly changed in twenty-five years. "Everyone keep an eye out for any big trees or hallow areas in trees. That was always the way to get into secret areas in Knothole here." says Tails once again to remind the other two what he was looking for in looking for Sonic. Both Lara and Rouge do start to walk around on their own now to scan the area to see if they could find the hidden place they thought Sonic was in.

The three of them do search for a least half an hour in the area before all meeting back up in the spot they had started searching in. It was slowly starting to get dark out now, so searching was getting rather difficult now that the sun was beginning to go down. "Did anyone find anything? I had no luck." says Tails looking down a bit upset that he hadn't found the entrance to the hideout. The other two shake their heads and look down as well.

"I have looked everywhere in this area Tails. Are you sure this is the area you were told about? I told you before Tails, this area was searched long ago. If Sonic was in this area, he would have been found during normal patrols." says Rouge. She would know being a spy, so her opinion of this area would most likely be the truth. Tails didn't like the sound of that at all.

"I don't know why I can't find it. I just know Sonic is in this area. He has to be. He must just know we are here, or he would have come out to meet us already if he is in the area. We need to keep looking." says Tails not giving up that easy. Tails was determined to find Sonic. If he simply gave up at the first hardship, he would never find Sonic if he was out there.

Rouge really had nothing to say to this. She could easily see Sonic's old influence in Tails at this moment. Sonic would never give up, no matter what, and Tails was now acting the same way. Apparently Sonic's teachings have rubbed off onto Tails more than he realizes. If Rouge knew where to look, then she would gladly tell Tails. However, she was as stumped as he was, since there wasn't even the smallest clue that Sonic might be in the area.

"Tails, I think we should set up camp or something for the night. It is starting to get dark out here, and we won't be able to search at all, if night comes in these woods. It looks like it is going to be pitch black out here, with how thick these trees are." says Lara finally stepping in with her opinion. She did know a thing or two about camping, having stayed out on the country side with her dad many times throughout the years. It was part of her training to learn how to survive on her own, and she was rather good at it too.

Tails nods when he hears Lara-Su's advice to set up camp before it gets too dark to see. "I think she's right. If we can't see what we are doing, then we have no business looking during the night." says Tails as he begins to take his satchel off over his shoulder. Tails had some things in there that they could eat during the night, but he brought no camping gear. They would have to make a shelter out of the nearby trees and sticks to make shelter for them all.

Just as Tails sits his satchel down to the ground and bends down to start taking things out of it, there is a click and some footsteps behind him. Tails, Lara and Rouge all look up seeing three Dark Legion soldiers all pointing their blasters right at the three of them. They had appeared out of nowhere and caught them all off guard. "Freeze you three! You are all in a restricted area! You will be brought in for questioning, so get on the ground now and put your hands behind your backs. Failure to comply will result in immediately termination." says one of the soldiers as they all look dead serious in that they will shoot any of them if they move in a way that looked threatening.

Tails was in massive shock at this and immediately puts his hands up as he gets down to his knees. He wasn't about to make a sudden move against these three. Lara and Rouge both do the same as they get down to their knees and start to put their hands up as well to them, to show they aren't going to be hostile. Rouge probably could go for her weapon, but then she risks getting the other two shot. She couldn't do that, so she just complies like the other two are.

The three soldiers start to walk towards Tails, Lara and Rouge with their weapons still pointed at them. They were standing over the three of them checking to make sure they were complying, before all of a sudden something slams into all three of them in the back rather hard knocking them forward. Tails lunges forward without even thinking and knees the soldiers in the groin to make him bend over a bit more before slugging him in the side of the face to take him down. Lara only had to rear back and slam her first into the jaw of the soldier in front of her. Rouge thrusts forward and double chops the last soldier on the sides of his neck and immediately takes him down with the take simple karate technique.

Tails does wonder what just happened as he gets to his feet. Something had just happened to give them each an opening to take down the soldiers before they could grab them. None of them got a look at what happened. It was so sudden that they didn't even have a second to think. Tails immediately starts to look around to see what just happened now. Lara and Rouge were doing the same thing, since it happened so fast.

Tails scans the area for a moment before he sees something behind him standing in the distance. There was a figure standing in the dim light not that many feet from where Tails currently stood. The others hadn't seen it yet, but Tails sure did and his eyes immediately became wide. Right there near him, stood a blue hedgehog, with a few healing scars in his fur. He did look slightly tired, but there was no denying what Tails was seeing in front of him. It was what Tails had been looking for. It was Sonic.

Tails and Sonic just stare at each other for a moment now, this allowing Lara and Rouge to both get a glimpse of Sonic as well. Tails' eyes do become teary a moment later, before he darts over towards Sonic now. "SONIC! YOU'RE ALIVE!" yells Tails not caring who heard as he runs over to Sonic and immediately hugs onto him. Sonic returns the hug smiling as he watches his now grown best friend run over and hug him like that. Sonic was really happy to see Tails once again and was slightly wet eyed as well. He hated to do mushy things like this usually, but he hadn't seen tails or any of his friends in so long that he didn't care right now.

"Yes, I am alive somehow bro. I'm glad you finally came and found me too." says Sonic keeping the hug onto Tails as Rouge and Lara start to make their way over towards Sonic and Tails. Sonic and Tails remain in their hug for a bit before finally breaking it as the two friends just continue to stare at each other.

"I'm glad you are Sonic. I have been wondering what had ever happened to you. After that day when Shadow took over, I never saw you again. I'm just so glad you alive!" says Tails wanting to hug Sonic again, but resisted the urge to. Sonic smiles understanding why Tails would be wondering those things after the disappearing act he had after going into that dungeon for so long. Sonic had often wondered what happened to Tails during the invasion as well. From the looks of it, Tails apparently grew up without Sonic rather well. Sonic would have liked to have seen it, but this was still great in his book.

Sonic did look over seeing the two other people that were with Tails now. Sonic could immediately recognize Rouge, since she didn't look that much different than when he last saw her, other than being a little older now. However, Sonic didn't recognize the echidna girl that was with Tails and Rouge. She did look a tad familiar, but Sonic couldn't place it right away. "You don't have to worry now Tails. I am here, but who is this here with you?" he asks immediately pointing his finger to Lara-Su.

Lara was a bit shocked at being asked a question like that so suddenly, since this was a meeting mainly for Tails. However, she wasn't about to wait around and make Sonic wait for an answer. "Hello Sonic, my name is Lara-Su. I am the daughter of the Guardian of Angel Island Knuckles. Julie-Su is my mother." she says getting a bit formal with her speech. She was taught that Sonic was someone to greatly respect, so she figured she had better do that with him. He was a big hero, so you better treat a hero with respect.

Sonic does chuckle a bit when he hears who the parents, but more at how formal she was being to him. "No need to be so stiff with me. I'm a normal person just like anyone else, but I can see that Knuckles must have kept himself busy while I was gone." says Sonic immediately laughing when he says that. He can't really picture Knuckles doing that, but he had to take the joke when it came to him. Lara is a bit confused by Sonic's joking like that, but she just lets it go and smiles hearing how friendly Sonic sounded.

Tails does chuckle a bit getting the joke, but he had other things to ask right now than joke around here in the slowly getting darker forest. "Sonic, I'm glad you safe and all, and that your sense of humor is still the same as ever. But how is it that you are surviving out there? I heard from Rotor when I snuck into the castle that you were living out here in the ruins of the old Freedom HQ with a duplicate program of Nicole, but where is the HQ if it hasn't been found just yet from all the patrols around here?" asks Tails. It was the question on everyone's mind right now and they all were looking for an answer from Sonic. If Sonic had a place to stay that meant they all might have a place to stay for the night without being spotted outside camping in the woods by more soldiers.

Sonic looks around for a moment before waving his hand as he turns and walks towards a rather large tree nearby that was completely surrounded by bushes. "This is how I haven't been found yet. Apparently Rotor made it, so that if the main HQ entrance was ever destroyed, this secret entrance to a side HQ would have a group of bushes grow around it so that no one would easily spot it." says Sonic pushing some of the bushes to the side showing a door made into the trunk of the tree. Tails grins and chuckles figuring there had to be some trick to how Sonic was hiding out here undetected. Rotor apparently had planned even for disaster if there was a secret entrance that was still not found after all this time.

"I should have expected as much out of Rotor." says Tails chuckling still a bit embarrassed that he would have never thought of something like this. It was pretty much a genius move to plan ahead like this for disaster. Tails was rather impressed by all this, but he was now curious to see what the insides of the hideout looked like.

Sonic nods as he opens up the door and starts to go inside. "Come on in guys. There are plenty of beds down here for all of you. You guys can catch me up on the gossip over dinner." says Sonic smiling as he disappears into the tree and starts down a flight of stairs right inside the door. Tails and Lara both head to the door immediately, but Rouge stays behind for the moment.

Tails looks back right before he heads into the door and sees Rouge still standing there and tilts his head a bit. "You coming Rouge?" he asks her. It was a bit odd that Rouge wouldn't want to get into the hide out right away, but she probably had a good excuse for not going in.

Rouge shakes her head no right away to Tails' question. "Not just yet, I need a little privacy for something girl related. I would rather do it out here than down there in front of you and Sonic. You don't need to worry. I will be inside in a moment. I just need to take care of that first." she says smiling over to Tails. Hearing this, Tails immediately enters the hideout without asking another question. He didn't want to hear the details about whatever girl thing she had to do. He already had to deal with one girl having girl things at home. Tails didn't want to deal with that with another girl.

Lara entered not long after Tails leaving Rouge outside the hide out all by herself. She immediately flies on up into the treetop above the hide out and perches herself on one of the higher branches inside a thicket of branches. Once she was up there, Rouge reaches into her side pocket and pulls out a radio. She fiddles with it for a moment until she gets a signal and puts it up to her mouth to speak. "This is agent one ten. I have found the targets."

To Be Continued……


	10. A Hero's Return

A Monarch's Corruption

Chapter 10: A Hero's Return

Tails was very happy as he made his way down the stairs of the hideout. The fox had finally found his best friend and has been reunited with him after all these years. He knew this day would happen sooner or later, but he was just grateful that it finally happened. Tails was starting to lose hope, but now that Sonic was back in his life, he figured this would mean his luck is finally turning for the better.

Tails and Lara remain silent for the moment as they follow Sonic down the stairs and soon to a heavily reinforced door. "It's just in here." says Sonic pressing a piece of wood near the door. When Sonic pressed this spot, the wood lifts and a keypad control panel comes out to him. Sonic quickly presses in the five digit code, which makes the door locks start to disengage. The panel hides back inside the wall and the door slides open and into the ground for them to enter.

When the door opens, a rather nice sized room with a large company and many side computer panels becomes visible. There was what looked to be a small kitchen area and a few beds down here as well. This place did remind Tails of their old headquarters, but only much smaller. It wasn't made for that many people to love down here, but from the way one of the beds were messed up, and there were old food containers lying around, Sonic had been living down here for awhile now.

Tails just smiles as he looks around when Sonic stops and turns around to face Tails and Lara. "Well, for now, this is home while I've been recovering." says Sonic spreading his arms out to show his home to the both of them. Tails seemed to like it, and figured that Sonic probably liked it down here like this. However, Lara didn't seem too impressed with the conditions.

"Not bad Sonic. I can see how you have evaded detection from what Rotor told me about you being down here. Good job on getting loose and getting here." says Tails chuckling as he starts to head over towards the big computer in the room to check it out. He was interested in seeing what was on the computer and to see what Sonic was possibly seeing. Tails wasn't sure if Sonic knew how to use the thing, but the computer looked awesome to him.

Sonic chuckles a bit too and nods as he walks with Tails over to the computer. He presses a few buttons to fire it up for Tails as he sits in one of the two seats next to it. "I might not have had much movements and endured beatings for years, but I'm still me. At least I've finally been given a chance to stretch my legs after all this time." says Sonic stretching out his legs as he sits in the chair in front of the computer.

Tails sits down in t he chair next to Sonic and watches him stretch like that. "I'm just glad you have gotten away. You've missed a lot over the years being down there. Many people think you are dead by now, with how long you have been down there and all." says Tails just relaying some of his thoughts to his best friend.

Lara was being left out at the moment, but she understood that the two adults were friends and she was still just a teenager. She probably wasn't the biggest concern right now, with these two being old friends and all. She was willing to wait until she was called upon, or she had an opinion to give to the conversation.

Sonic couldn't help but chuckle as he starts to press a few buttons on the console in front of him. "Well as you can see little bro, I'm just fine. Being in jail for many years isn't going to kill me. I'm not totally up to date, but this computer is able to do temporary link ups to the outside world and allow me get updates on what is going on in the world. I hadn't thought to check Angel Island, so that's why I didn't know about the kid back there." says Sonic starting to press a few more buttons to fire the large computer up.

"So that's what this computer down here is for. It's basically how you've been learning what all has changed, and what you can do next. That's very clever indeed Sonic." says Tails smiling as he watches Sonic continues to press buttons on the computer, before it is even fired up all the way. Tails was a bit confused by this, but Tails figures Sonic knows what he was doing. Sonic had been down here with this machine for a few months now, so of course he would know it in and out.

"Yes, but you haven't seen the best feature of this computer. I took some other advice of Rotor's before I fired this thing up for the first time." says Sonic as he presses a few more buttons before just sitting back and waiting now. "Watch and you will see." says now staying quiet as the opening screen was just starting to fade away now.

Tails looks up at the screen like Sonic said to do and watches as the main screen of the computer turns back on. Tails just chuckles when he sees the screen fade in and on the screen in one corner of the screen was an animated version of a brown lynx that looked to be Nicole. Tails couldn't believe it, but apparently, Sonic had found one of her backups. "Welcome Tails and Julie-Su. I see you both finally found this hide out. Good to be able to see you two reunite with Sonic." she says as she leans against the edge of the screen. Since there wasn't enough power, she couldn't come out into her physical form. However, she was still a computer program, so making an animated version of herself on the screen wasn't that hard.

"Nicole! Wow, glad to see you after all this time, but how did you know we were coming or would ever find out about this place?" asks Tails looking over to Sonic for a moment and back up to her. Julie was interested in hearing this as well, especially since the computer program seemed to know her, when she had never seen it before like the boys had. It was rather interesting for her, but she just continues to keep quiet. She didn't want to get yelled at anymore if she could avoid it.

"Oh that's easy Tails. As Sonic has probably already mentioned, I can hook up to outside networks temporarily every now and then. Not long ago I detected your leaving from Downunda and also your penetration of the Castle where Shadow is currently calling his home. I wish I could have sent you out a message to tell you and the others that are out there about Sonic, but my functions are limited down here. I can't make much of a move, or my system might be detected." she says looking down at the two boys sitting in the computer chairs in front of her.

Tails couldn't help but grin to this. Nicole was just as slippery as ever, despite her limited functions on this backup computer. "It's ok Nicole. Think nothing of not being able to contact me. I understand why you didn't. It was to keep Sonic hidden down here while he recovered from his injuries and regained his strength." says Tails nodding. Sonic smiles and nods as well. He had heard this situation before, but he was just glad that Tails eventually arrived here to find him. Sonic wanted out of this place bad, and Tails was his ticket out of hiding for now at least.

"Yes that is correct Tails. However, I have been monitoring how the world had been going, since Sonic plugged me into this computer. Things do not look good, but with you two together again, I would think your chances would be pretty good for at least making some kind of a change in how things have been going in the world these days." says Nicole. She did seem to have thought these things out decently, which was sort of expected with her. She was a computer after all, just one with a personality.

"Well I'm glad you think that. Right now, I think it best if I get Sonic off this continent. I want to take him back to Downunda with me. Once there and I get him settled in, I was going to start planning on how to make things better. The Dark Legion in Downunda is nothing like the ones here. They are actually friend and seem to like the land there." say Tails explaining what he thought was his plan at the moment. It was all that he could come up with on t he spur of the moment. He didn't know if they would find Sonic when they started looking, so he hadn't thought up completely what to do next. He came up with all that on the fly.

Nicole stands there for a moment on the screen looking to be going over things in her databases, before she looks up again at Tails and Sonic. "That would be wise. Getting Sonic out of here before he is captured by Shadow's personal guard would be best. Even if Sonic is discovered in Downunda, you could easily move him before Shadow can get there." says Nicole looking to like Tails' plan. Sonic nods as well and gives the thumbs up to this. He didn't mind getting a change of scenery at all.

"You don't mind going on an extended plane trip to meet my family, Sonic?" asks Tails giving a smile over to his best friend. Tails already knew the answer, but he just had to ask Sonic for himself. It would be rude to just drag Sonic along like that. However, that is what Sonic used to do to Tails whenever they were traveling places.

Sonic just chuckles and pats Tails on the head. "Sure bro, I don't mind. This country is getting old anyway. Plus, I'd like to see those kids of yours that I read about in Nicole's database. How in the world did you manage to swing Mina?' asks Sonic leaning down and whispering at that part, but really was just being playful. It was more of a comment on how did Tails land a good looking girl like her, when even he had failed with Mina.

Tails just grins when he hears this part from Sonic. He was glad that Sonic already knew about his family, but he couldn't help but brag a bit when he hears Sonic asking him how he ended up with Mina. "Oh you know me. I learned from the best. I just used what I was taught and made it work for me. She never stood a chance." says Tails grinning when he says this. This immediately makes Sonic laugh and leans back in his chair when he hears Tails talk like this. Apparently, Sonic had taught him well from how it sounded.

"That's great bro. Glad to hear at least you have had a happy life while I was in jail. Now all we have to do is try and put things like the way they should be, right Nicole?" asks Sonic looking up to the computer screen at the lynx. Tails looks up as well knowing the answer, but she was the one with the smarts to analyze the situation and tell if things were the right choices or not.

"That's correct. Why don't you three have a meal before making your way back to Tails' plane? I know it is dark outside, but I think it would be best to make your way out of the forest during night fall. There will be less patrols out at night, so you should be able to slip out of here a lot easier" says Nicole nodding to all this.

Tails nods agreeing with this, but this did bring up one question that he figured he better ask now. "That all sounds good Nicole, but how would we be able to find my plane in the dark? I might have good night vision, being a fox and all, but navigation in this forest could be tricky, since I haven't lived here in many years." says Tails. This was very true. Since Tails hadn't lived in the forest for so many years, the scenery has changed, making finding his way around at night a much harder job than it would have been if he had tried it when he was a kid.

"Not a problem. I have traced the location of where you landed your plane a few miles from here. I can print you out a map that will lead you to the plane. It will have the most recommended path for you to take. If you follow it exactly, you should find your plane, even in this dark night. Just be sure to take a tiny light with you, so that you can see the map." says Nicole. She soon does pull up a picture right next to her on the screen that shows a map just like she said. It looked very detailed, and had a red line being drawn on it out of the thin air. Nicole was the computer, so she didn't appear to be doing anything, when in fact she was doing all of this that was happening next to her on the screen.

"Wow that will be a big help. Thank Nicole!" says Tails smiling as he watches Nicole drawing the map on the screen for them. However, Tails does turn his head for a moment seeing Lara just standing back near the beds looking pretty bored at being here at the moment. She thought meeting Sonic would be something more exciting than this. It was great to meet a legend and all, but they were just standing around talking. It wasn't exactly her idea of a fun and exciting day.

"Hey Lara, you are going to have to most likely come back to Downunda with us for awhile. I don't have time to stop in Echindaopolis with Sonic on board. I'll give a call to your dad once we get home and I'll fly you back to the island when Angel Island is making its flight over Downunda. It passes over once a month so you won't have to wait long I think." says Tails trying to cheer her up a bit, since she looked a bit bored back there.

Lara does smile a bit hearing this part. She had never gotten to go to Downunda before. She had only had ever read about the echidna homeland in her school textbook. She knows her dad and mom might be mad at her for sneaking off like this, but they might not mind her spending some time in Downunda, since it is a historic place for the echidna race. "Alright, I'll go. I might as well check out some of the places I read about in my textbooks." she says smiling and nodding to Tails in approval.

"Alright then, you will ride in the back seat, while Sonic takes the wings. You still able to handle riding outside on the wings Sonic?" asks Tails turning back to Sonic and smiles. He hoped Sonic was back in well enough shape to do that, but he had to hear it from Sonic himself.

"If you had come about a month ago I would say no, but I think I could manage it. However, do you think you could put a strap or something for me to hang onto while I'm out there? I think I can still hold on, but I would rather be safe than sorry. I'm out of practice." says Sonic shrugging but also blushing a bit at this. He was embarrassed to ask for a safety harness, but he has been locked up for so long, he hasn't gotten all the way back to full strength just yet.

"Sure thing Sonic, I don't mind adding in a harness to secure you to the wings so you don't go flying off if I have to make some sort of sudden movement. I just got you back, not going to have you go flying off into the ocean because I was in too big of a hurry to get you home." says Tails chuckling. He does notice Sonic cringe a little bit at the mention of the ocean, but that was normal. No matter how long Sonic had been locked down in that dungeon, he still had his fear of water. The ocean being the ultimate water source, so obviously Sonic wouldn't like flying over it or going for a swim in it.

As Sonic finally nods to this, Nicole does turn her attention back to the boys as she continues drawing the map for them. "Why don't you three now go get yourself a snack while I finish this up? I only need a few more minutes to make out the details for you. Once I'm done I'll print it out and you three can get going." she says down to the three of them.

Tails nods and does start to head over towards the small kitchen area to grab something to eat. He hadn't eaten for most of the day, other than what he got back at his parent's house. Lara was already ahead of the boys and was sitting there now at the small table with a large bowl of fruit pulled over towards her.

Sonic wasn't all that eager to eat fruit, like Tails might, so he heads over to the refrigerator to check out what else might be in there for him to snack on. Tails did just as Sonic thought and headed over to the bowl Lara was eating from and takes out a banana and starts to peal it. Tails only needed a small snack, just like Lara with the grapes she was eating at the moment.

While Tails and Lara concentrated on their fruit, Sonic pulls out a couple of Chilidogs that he had stored away and saved for the next time he planned on eating. Since he was leaving soon, he figured he better eat them now before they go to waste. No way was Sonic about to let lovely, precious chilidogs go to waste, when they could have a new home inside his stomach.

As they ate, Nicole continued to work on the map she was making for them to find their way back during the middle of the night. It was very detailed. It was almost like a satellite image from how detailed she was drawing it for them. It was in a top down view, so that they could see the entire area. However, she has cut out most of the tree tops, so that she could draw a large red line along the ground. This line was the path she figured would be the easiest for them to follow, without somewhere along the line getting lost in the woods.

Tails watched as Sonic ate his chilidogs and just smiles. Sonic hadn't changed one bit in all these years. Sonic was now over forty years old, and still he seemed like the same Sonic that Tails knew all those years ago. It brought back many pleasant memories for Tails.

Tails and Lara just sat there for a few more minutes as they waited for Sonic to fill up on the chilidogs. They didn't want to rush him, since this was likely his daily meal that he needed to get energy from for the rest of the day. Once Sonic was done, he couldn't help but let out a rather large belch from all the chili he just ate. Tails couldn't help but chuckle, but Lara didn't seem that impressed by this at all.

Sonic stands on up and pats his belly as he looks at the other two in front of him. "So are we ready to go now?" asks Sonic, who appeared to want to leave now. Sonic was always eager to go when he was ready to go. If he wasn't ready to go, no one else should go. Tails knew this, and that is why he waited until Sonic said he was ready to leave for the plane.

"Yeah, we just need to collect the map from Nicole and we can head out." says Tails as he goes over to the computer to check on Nicole's progress on the map. The map that was on the screen pretty much looked done, except for a few spots here and there. Nicole was marking many small things on the map to try and help them be guided better, even in the middle of the night.

"Map making complete, printing map. Once printing is complete, follow map to location marked on the map. You guys should only take about a half hour to find the plane with this path I marked for you." says Nicole as a small humming sound starts. To the right of them, out of a small slot, shoots a sheet of paper that has the map she just drew on it for them, which Tails quickly picks up and keeps a hold of.

"Now we are ready Sonic. Let's head on up and see if Rouge is ready to go as well. We need to get moving as soon as possible." says Tails as he starts to head towards the door. Lara looks really happy to be leaving now. She was already tired of this place, since this trip was nothing like what she expected it to be like. She just wanted to head to some place that was like civilization now. She has had her fill of hiking in the woods for the day.

"I will be shutting down temporarily while you guys are out to recharge and monitor the situation. Be quick now, there are likely going to be new patrols in the area soon. You must not be seen." says Nicole. Right after she gives the advice, the screen she was standing on blacks out, and many, but not all of the lights on the console shut off as well. She was still online like she said she would be, but it was in a very low key setting apparently.

"Come on now! Let's get moving before I get any older than I already am!" says Sonic starting to get a bit antsy now. He had been just standing here waiting for Tails and Nicole to be ready to go, when he was already ready a minute ago. Even just waiting around for one minute was too long for Sonic, but luckily he did stay still for now to wait.

"Alright alright Sonic, let's get going." says Tails as he opens the door and starts to head up the stairs to go back outside. Sonic quickly sped on up ahead of Tails and goes to check out the outside of the hideout. Once he gets to the surface, Rouge is standing not far from the door waiting on them to come back up.

"Well, it's about time you came back out of there. I've been waiting here for awhile now. It's not very polite to keep a woman waiting you know." she says leaning off the tree when she sees Sonic and then not long after, Tails and Lara as well. She still had her mask off, but she seemed to be just the same as before.

"Well, we had to make a map to get back to my plane, and we had a small snack as well. Why didn't you come down Rouge?" asks Tails curiously. It was a bit strange that she just waited out here for them to come back out, instead of going down to see them. However, Tails didn't think much of it and just let it go for now.

"I told you before, that I had some business to take care of out here. Once I was done, I figured you two would need some catching up time, so I just stayed out here until then." she says shrugging as she stands there next to the three of them. Sonic and Tails both look at each other and simply give a shrug to that. It sounded perfectly reasonable to them.

"Well ok then, let's get going before it gets any later in the evening. It's so dark now, that I'm going to have to use my mini flashlight to even see the map. I'll lead the way, you guys keep a look out for patrols as we head for where my plane is hidden." says Tails as he reaches into his fanny pack now. It only takes a moment before Tails pulls out his flashlight and begins to examine the map to check and see which way they should go now.

Sonic, Lara and Rouge all nod silently as they begin to follow Tails. They do keep a close eye out around them for anything else that might be moving, but no one could hear anything but their own footsteps for now. There were no lights, other than some moonlight that was creeping through the treetops. The forest just seemed very quiet at the moment. There wasn't even any bug noises like there usually was at this time in the evening, which was rather strange.

Tails had his eyes concentrated on this map very hard. He had to make sure they followed the path exactly, or else they could get lost. If they got lost out here, they wouldn't be able to find their way back to the plane until morning, but if that was the case, there would be a much higher chance of being found in daylight.

Rouge did have the best night vision of them all, and she could clearly make out all that was around them at the moment. She could see them approaching a small clearing up ahead, which she knew was there. She just smiles as she keeps walking along with the group. They would at least get a little burst of moon light in this clearing.

Since Tails was so concerned with following the map, he barely even noticed they were walking through a clearing. His main concern at the moment was to just follow the line on his map and only look out for anything, if his friends told him to watch out. Since no one was saying anything to him, he didn't feel the need to be on high alert at all.

As they started into the clearing, Rouge did seem to walk a bit slower, but the others didn't notice this at all. However, two seconds later, a giant spot light cuts on right in Tails, Sonic and Lara's face. "GAH! What the?" asks Tails as he looks up, just as four other spot lights all suddenly get turned on, completely illuminating the area. All four of them were pretty much blinded the moment the light hit their eyes, but as soon as their eyes adjusted to the light, they were able to see what was going on around them.

Tails and the others all go wide eyed when they see where the lights were coming from. From all directions around there, were large trucks and hidden bike that all had black robe covered echidna's sitting on them, each of them holding blasters right at them. Tails turns his head looking the way they came, and there were more echidna starting to fill in the hole they had just filled. There was even a small hover ship starting to hover over the location as well, shining another bright spot light on their position. Somehow, they had walked right into a trap that seemed to have been set just for them.

"How did they find us so?" asks Tails looking over to Sonic. Sonic does look a little nervous now seeing all these guards around him. He has seen so many of them over the years that he has grown to hate echidna that were wearing these cloaks. If he had been on his own, Sonic most likely could have just sped off without taking a hit from the Echidna blasters, but since Tails was here, he couldn't do that, without risking them being hit.

Lara couldn't believe what she was seeing happening now. She had wandered into something that apparently was a lot bigger than she thought, but she wasn't about to back down and be scared, just because these people were her own kind. "FREEZE! ALL OF YOU PUT YOUR HANDS UP HIGH! YOU ARE ALL UNDER ARREST FOR HIGH TREASON AGAINST THE EMPIRE!" calls out a voice over a megaphone nearby. However, this voice seemed very familiar to all of them.

All of them turn their attention to the voice that just called out to them, where they all were immediately shocked at who they saw standing there with a megaphone approaching them. Coming right towards there were a small group of Legion soldiers, but leading them was none other than Knuckles holding the megaphone and Lien-Da walking a few paces behind him with a huge grin on her face.

"Dad!? What's going on here?" asks Lara as he takes a few steps forward towards Knuckles, only to have many guns click and pointed at her to make her stop her progress towards the two walking towards her. Lara quickly staggered backwards and starts to put her hands up slightly to show she was unarmed at the moment.

"I told you all to get your hands up and you better do it now." commands Knuckles as he and Lien-Da soon came to a stop a few paces from the group. Lara already had her hands up, but Tails finally does so as well. However, Sonic didn't put his up at all, and instead keeps them at his waist. He wasn't afraid of Knuckles, though it was nice to see how he looked now after so many years.

"Like I would listen to you and your group." says Sonic as he stands in defiance of the order he was given. Knuckles and Lien-Da do glance over at him, but Lien-Da just chuckles when Sonic starts to defy their orders like this. She seemed to expect he wouldn't listen to them at all.

"Very well Sonic, you don't have to listen to our orders, but wouldn't it be such a shame if something happened to your fox friend here?" she asks taking out a small handheld laser gun and points it right in Tails' direction. Tails immediately starts to shake a bit, since he knew Lien-Da would mean a threat like that. She was known to do whatever was necessary to get the job done and shooting someone wouldn't be beyond how far she might go.

Sonic growls a bit before slowly putting his hands up into the air. He didn't want to, but seeing as he couldn't take a treat against Tails as lightly as his own safety, he had no choice. Once his arms were up in the air, Lien-Da holders her gun and grins once again. "Smart choice hedgehog." she says chuckling slightly as the soldiers continue to get closer to them all.

Tails doesn't sound happy at all by this as he keeps his hands up in the air. "Knuckles, how could you turn us in like this? How did you even find us out here?" asks Tails with a very angry tone in his voice. He couldn't believe they could be found like this so easily. There had to be an explanation as to what was going on, seeing as they would have had to know their exact location to be able to set a trap like this so perfectly placed to catch them. Tails figured Knuckles must have ratted on them, but he wanted to hear it from Knuckles' mouth.

"I don't think Knuckles is the one you need to be talking to about finding your little fox behind out here. This was all my doing." says Lien-Da as she starts to approach Tails. Lien-Da couldn't help but chuckle a bit as she approaches him. Tails does take one step back, but that was it as Lien-Da approaches him quickly. "Isn't that right, agent one ten?" asks Lien-Da as she stops only a few steps away from Tails now.

Tails and the others immediately look confused when Lien-Da says this. It seemed like she was talking to no one, but that was until they heard a voice behind them. "Yes, that is correct commander." says Rouge all of a sudden. All three of them quickly spin around to look at Rouge, only to see her standing there now with a laser pistol in her hand just like the echidnas now.

"You traitor!" yells Tails starting to growl now. He couldn't believe Rouge could simply turn traitor on them so easily. He should have spotted this from a mile away, seeing as she has done similar things to people in the past, but Tails thought she might have changed and actually did work for Knuckles, not Lien-Da.

"Traitor is such an ugly word don't you think? However, I think it fits the situation rather well. Yes, while I was taking care of the business I said I was taking care of, I transmitted your location to the troops here and we set a trap to capture you. I had a hacking device hooked up to that tree you were in and managed to snag a snapshot of that map as it was being made. I simply sent it to Lien-Da here and we knew right where to set the trap for you three. You walked right into it." says Rouge grinning as she keeps her gun pointed at them.

Tails looks even madder at hearing this, but doesn't make a move with her standing right there. He would get back against her later. Lara in the mean time turns back towards Knuckles and does suddenly start to look angry at what she is witnessing happening around her. "Dad! You can't do this to them. These people are your friends. Are you really just going to arrest them like this?" asks Lara looking very serious. She was looking more serious than she had during this entire trip now as she stares at her dad's eyes.

Knuckles just stares back as well for a moment at Lara before waving his hand towards her. "Come here Lara. I need to talk to you for a moment." says Knuckles with a super serious look on his face as well. It was pretty obvious where Lara got this look from, since they were pretty much glaring each other down for the moment.

After Knuckles told Lara to approach him, she did just that and starts to walk over towards her father. Knuckles waits until Lara is standing face to face towards him, before putting a hand onto her shoulder, "I really wish you had not come here, but since you did, you have to go with them." says Knuckles as he very quickly, before Lara can even speak, gives this spot on the side of her neck a quick squeeze. Lara goes wide eyed when she sees what he was about to do, since he had taught her this move before. Before she could make a move though, she feels the squeeze which quickly makes her eyes roll back in her head as she falls forward against Knuckles, she slipping right out of consciousness. However, Knuckles is sure to catch her before she hits the ground.

Tails and Sonic's eyes get very large when they see Knuckles knock Lara out so easily like that. "Knuckles! What are you doing!?" asks Tails shocked that he would do that to his own daughter. Tails would never do something like that his daughter or son, so he was surprised that Knuckles would do that to one of his own.

"She made a bad choice, and now she must pay. Sorry you had to see this." says Knuckles as he casually picks Lara up off the ground and into his arms. Once he had her securely in his arms, he turns and starts to carry her back towards the ship that was landing not far behind them. Lien-Da just grins when she watches this. She had thought Knuckles would let Lara off the hook when she was caught out here with Sonic and Tails, but apparently, he was going to hold down the punishment that girl deserved.

"Well now, seeing as Shadow will likely be eager to see that we caught his most wanted fugitive and an instigator to his throne. I think it would be best if we got back to the palace as soon as possible." says Lien-Da as she starts to turn her back away from Sonic and Tails. She wasn't concerned about them at all trying to attack her. If they had tried anything against her, they would both be shot, before they could even reach her.

"We aren't going anywhere Lien-Da" says Sonic as he does move to stand closer to Tails to defend him slightly. He does keep his hands up for now, but he was starting to look a bit more defensive than he did before. For some reason though, Lien-Da didn't even sound the least bit nervous at Sonic's response and even keeps her back turned away from them both.

"I don't think you have a choice hedgehog. Why don't you two just lie down and have a good rest while you are taken back to the palace ok?" asks Lien-Da as she does finally start to turn around once again to face them both. For some reason she had this very big smile on her face as she was saying all this. She apparently was taking great pleasure in doing her job.

"We won't be taking any nap, because we aren't going to the castle." says Sonic as he starts to put his hands down now. Tails does start to wonder if Sonic knows what he is doing, but doesn't question his actions. Sonic must have some sort of plan, and Tails was going to wait and see what it was.

Lien-Da couldn't help but laugh at Sonic's bravery. It was just hilarious to her. "Well hedgehog, I wasn't simply suggestion you two take a nap. I was telling you to take one." she says giving a small wink to them both. Sonic and Tails both look confused at this, but they never even saw it coming as two soldiers, that had been standing behind them, club them over the back of their heads with the butts of their guns.

The boys stood there stunned for a moment from the shock of being hit, but that only lasts a short while, before they both fall face forward onto the ground, completely knocked out. As soon as they hit the ground, the soldiers that hit them over the back of the head immediately start to cuff them, while a third soldiers starts to take any equipment that was on Tails at the moment. They didn't want Tails waking up and using any of the items he likely had packed away inside those pouches.

Lien-Da turns away from the two fallen heroes and starts her walk towards the ship where Knuckles just went to with Lara. She does look back slightly as she is walking. "As soon as you have them secure, bring them onto the ship with us. We are moving out as soon as everyone is ready. We need to get back to the palace as soon as possible. Shadow will be most pleased." she says laughing out loud as she starts to head up the stairs of the ship, to await the journey back to Shadow's castle. But now, with three extra passengers than before, that Shadow would love to see. Which Shadow might get to do very soon.

To Be Continued….


End file.
